hillside.
The camp below was arranged in a familiar fashion. Those tents and neat
blocks had been the patterns of Merin’s life for a very long time. There were far more burning stations than he had expected, and the scent of smoke
was strong in the air. The city of Crossguard was a dark block in the near distance—more like a large keep than a proper city.
Renarin shuffled beside him. “This is wrong, Merin,” he whispered.
“Too much fire.”
“There was a lot of death this day,” Merin said with a bitter taste in his mouth.
“No,” Renarin said. “Not just that. Those are the fires of death, but also of victory. This war is over. We are too late.”
“That can’t be,” Merin said. “Look—lights burn atop the city wall, and
the keep looks like it’s occupied. There’s too much . . .”
Merin trailed off as Renarin pointed toward the city. At first, Merin
couldn’t make out the reason for the gesture, but slowly his eyes discerned shapes half-hidden in the darkness. He could see through the wall in one
entire section, could see the twinkling of lights beyond. An enormous
chunk of the wall was simply . . . missing.
“Awakeners,” Renarin whispered.
Merin closed his mouth, Renarin’s hushed word hanging like a dread
curse. Never, during the entire Prallah war, had the king used his Awakeners in battle. Lord Dalenar would have forbidden it—but now, that restriction
was gone. Even still, to use Awakeners against his own kinsmen . . .
“Aredor,” Merin said, standing. “We have to find him.”
Renarin reached out, grabbing ahold of the edge of Merin’s cloak. “We’re
too late, Merin,” he whispered.
Merin pulled the cloak free. “Wait here,” he said. “I’m just going to go
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look around a bit. I have to find out what happened to Aredor. If the king has him in captivity, Lord Dalenar needs to know.”
Merin continued down the side of the hill. A part of him realized that
he wasn’t thinking rationally, that he didn’t want to consider the implication of Renarin’s statement. But what was he supposed to do? Come all this way, then turn around and face Lord Dalenar’s disappointment without even a
word of news about his son and heir?
As Merin strode forward in the night, he heard Renarin scramble up
behind him. “Put up your hood,” Renarin said. “Our cloaks are Kholin blue, and you have a Shardblade. If we stay away from the main camp, maybe no
one will notice that we bear my father’s glyph.”
Merin nodded, doing as suggested. He rested his Shardblade on his
shoulder, then continued forward in the night, walking directly toward
the gap in the city wall. Men in Elhokar’s army might recognize him,
but the townspeople of Crossguard wouldn’t. Perhaps some of them could
give news.
If they’re not all cowering in their stormcellars. In fact, King Elhokar probably declared a curfew. That’s what he did in all the Prallan cities we captured. What am I doing? This is foolish!
But he’d been foolish twice before. He’d jumped to attack a Shardbearer
while the rest of his squad scattered, grabbing ahold of an armored man
and pulling him from his mount. He’d stood beside Aredor to fight two
experienced duelists with superior equipment. Both times bravery had
served him well.
The few soldiers they passed bowed and moved quickly away, seeing the
Blade but not the shadowed faces. Merin approached the Crossguard walls,
each step seeming to take him into a deeper state of numbness. Chunks
of rock lay scattered across the ground around the gap in the wall—the
Awakeners had only needed to destroy the foundations, and the section
of stone had collapsed. The broken hole in the wall approached with the
looming despair of a city shattered. Defeated. Conquered.
Two lines of torches stood just inside the gap, running corridor-like
into the city. As Merin grew closer, he realized that there was something
standing in-between each pair of torches. Something vaguely illuminated
by their light, something thin.
“Merin, let’s turn back,” Renarin encouraged. His voice seemed distant.
Removed.
Merin stepped up to the gap in the wall. It was at least a hundred feet
across. The torches were closer now, and he walked toward the line closest
THE WAY OF KINGS PRIME 445
to him. It was odd to find no sentries by the city wall. Perhaps Elhokar
didn’t see anything else to fear from Crossguard. There was some movement
inside the city, mostly what looked like guard patrols in the streets. Merin had been right—there would be no interviewing city occupants this night.
However, Merin’s interest no longer lay in the townspeople. He walked up
to the lines of torches, toward the objects they guarded.
“Merin . . .” Renarin said.
Merin ignored him, striding right up to the first pair of torches, where
he found Aredor waiting for him. The heir’s decapitated head was strangely recognizable. For some reason, that didn’t seem right. This gruesome thing stuck to a spear shouldn’t have been so familiar, shouldn’t have reminded
Merin of laughter and camaraderie. He should have seen only death in it,
not a strong reminder of the man who had befriended and guided him.
Merin turned back toward Renarin. The boy stood with sorrow, his
torchlit features hauntingly similar to the ones atop the spear. “He’s dead, Merin,” Renarin whispered. “We couldn’t have changed that. We were too
far away, and we left too late.”
Merin turned back to Aredor. “This isn’t the way it was supposed to be,
Aredor,” he said. “I came to get you, to take you back . . .”
“Merin,” Renarin said with a quiet urgency. “Those guards have noticed
us. We should go.”
Merin stared into Aredor’s dark, dead eyes. Why? Why wasn’t I in time?
Where is the Almighty now? He helped me save the king’s life twice, only so that very man could kill Aredor? Where is the justice in that?
“Merin!” Renarin said with further urgency. Merin allowed the boy to
pull him away from the line of torches and its grisly faces. As the faces fell into darkness, however, the questions they asked didn’t leave Merin alone.
It was fortuitous that they managed to reach their horses without incident, but Merin barely noticed. His body did its duty, carrying him forward as
they untied their horses and escaped out into the night—heading west,
toward Kholinar, for lack of anything else to do. They rode silently.
Aredor can’t be dead. That thing atop the spear; it wasn’t him. Merin didn’t want to think, he just wanted to walk in the darkness. What was the use
of Bajerden and Sheneres, the Arguments and nobility, if they didn’t protect the men who followed them?
Neither man spoke complaint as they trudged eastward, riding impas-
sively for hours. Merin wanted to be far away from that place, for he knew when he finally did lay down to sleep, he would see dead eyes watching him, accusatory, in his sleep. He was actually surprised when a shadow appeared
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before him, and he realized a faint light was shining on the horizon behind him. Had they really walked that long?
A voice suddenly snapped in the air.
The figures were upon them like a sudden storm, pulling Merin to
the ground and
ripping his Shardblade from his fingers. He cried out as
something heavy pressed against his back, holding him down.
The voice sounded again, speaking in a language Merin didn’t under-
stand. Rough hands grabbed Merin, hauling him to his feet. Dazed, he saw
Renarin undergoing similar treatment a short distance away. A group of
soldiers in Aleth blue surrounded them, watching with wary eyes. The
king’s soldiers.
Merin shook his head, trying to dispel his stupor. Had they really been
tracked all this time? Followed by . . .
“Where is the Lady Kholin?” the voice demanded, speaking Aleth with a
strange accent. The speaker was the only one who didn’t wear blue, but was instead dressed in simple brown clothing of little note. His face, however, was odd. His eyes were wide—a little too big, like those of a child—and
his skin had a bleached paleness to it.
“Where is the Lady Kholin?” the man repeated. His voice was calm,
but there was a danger to it—an implication that his was a question
best answered as quickly, and as truthfully, as possible.
“Lady Jasnah?” Merin said with true confusion. “What are you talking
about?”
The strange man frowned slightly. He stepped forward, moving with an
almost inhuman litheness, slinking like a passing breeze and not a creature of flesh. He studied Merin for a moment, then turned to Renarin.
“I recognize you,” the strange man said in his lightly accented voice. “The son of Dalenar Kholin.”
Renarin hung limply in his captor’s arms.
The stranger watched them both for a moment. “These are not the ones
we are looking for,” he finally said. “But the king may desire to speak with them. Regardless, they cannot be released now. Bind them and search them
for weapons.”
Their captors moved to comply, quickly binding Merin’s arms. He didn’t
struggle until he saw one of the men holding his Shardblade. The man
raised a rock toward the pommel.
“No!” Merin yelled, suddenly frantic. His hundred days was nearly up.
He almost had the Blade bound. If he lost it now . . .
One of the soldiers cuffed Merin neatly on the side of the head, dazing
THE WAY OF KINGS PRIME 447
him. The other man let the rock fall, knocking the nearly-blackened opal
free from its bindings. Merin watched with despair as the gemstone fell to the stones, discarded as useless.
Merin watched with stupefaction, his head throbbing from the blow.
It took a sudden motion from the side to make him focus again.
Renarin was free.
The boy jumped away from the soldiers, clutching something protec-
tively in his fingers: his onyx sphere. He turned to dash away, but one of the soldiers tackled him, throwing him to the ground. The sphere flew
free from protective fingers, smashing to the ground a short distance from Merin. The sphere shattered as stone met stone, scattering dark chips into the air.
Renarin cried out in despair, scrambling forward, then falling to the
ground as one of the soldiers grabbed his foot.
Merin yanked against his surprised captor’s grip, free for a sudden and
marvelous moment.
Then he was there, the Shin man, moving like flowing water. He grabbed Merin by the neck and threw him down with a smooth spin of the body.
Arms still tied, Merin hit the ground hard, and blackness took him.
chapter 49
JASNAH 11
“I’m sorry, my lady, but there just aren’t any horses to be found.”
Jasnah frowned. Twentieth Lord Nivedelesh, Lord Ivenal’s steward,
was an aging man who appeared to have seen some battle in his younger
days, for his face bore a massive scar that left part of his scalp hairless.
If he noticed the oddity of being questioned by a woman—rather than
Meridas—he made no outward display.
“Not even one?” Jasnah prodded. The innkeeper had provided one of
his back sleeping chambers to her for use as an ‘audience hall.’ The dec-
orations were of a faux lavishness, with just enough seasilk, marble, and
expensive woods to give hints of richness. The room was uncomfortably
hot—Jasnah had accustomed herself to life in Ral Eram, and the city’s
elevation had kept its temperatures chill even during the summer. It had
been some time since Jasnah had been forced to spend the Searing out in
the countryside.
Her high-backed chair, at least, was comfortable, and the local maids
had cleaned and perfumed her dress, removing most of the stains. They
couldn’t do anything about the tattered edges or ripped side, but at least it was a little more presentable. She sat, keeping her posture lady-like despite the heat, as the steward spoke.
“I’m sorry, my lady,” the man said. “But Lord Ivenal was commanded
THE WAY OF KINGS PRIME 449
to collect every horse the town could provide. King Elhokar needed them
to march against the fallen Parshen of Crossguard. We sent every beast in every stable—though that was, in truth, a small number. We are not a rich
town, my lady, and horses are a great expense. Even my lord himself kept
only six.”
Jasnah kept her face calm, but inside she seethed at her lack of options.
She could, of course, continue on to another town and ask for mounts there.
However, she had an unsettling feeling that if Ivenal had been commanded
to send for all his horses, the other lords in this area would have been given the same order. Southwestern Alethkar was one of Elhokar’s main bastions
of support. She would have to travel halfway to Kholinar itself before she found one of Dalenar’s tribute cities, which would have remained neutral
at their lord’s command.
Her feet ached at the thought of traveling so far without horses. After
just a week’s travel she felt sore and fatigued—and this week had been done at a slow pace to accommodate the wounded and elderly. She had blisters in a tenset of places, and though a pretty new set of slippers hid the bottoms of her feet, she could feel the raw flesh throbbing beneath.
She gritted her teeth against the pains. Others had endured similar
problems without complaint, and so would she. Fortunately, she probably
wouldn’t have to do much more walking herself.
“Have the messengers been sent?” she asked.
The steward nodded. “Yes, my lady. Four of our fastest lads, two sent
running to Kholinar, two sent to the king’s army, all four by different
routes.”
Jasnah nodded, trying not to feel guilt for the way she used these people.
She had explained the danger to them, but sensed that they didn’t realize
just how great a threat the invaders presented. The people assumed that
King Elhokar, whose victories in Prallah had come with such relative ease, would similarly have little problem driving the Veden invaders from Aleth
stone. They didn’t understand the army’s fatigue, the casualties they had
incurred by fighting in Prallah, and the morale losses they would suffer by being forced to fight their kinsmen in Crossguard.
Vedenar would not be under-equipped, as Pralir had been. Its soldiers
would be well-trained—better warriors, even, than their Aleth counter-
parts. Vedenar hosted the finest weapon and armorsmiths in Kanaran
Roshar, and had a military discipline as strict as Alethkar’s noble code of propriety. Elhokar would have had difficulty fending off this fo
e even if
his men were rested and prepared.
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Jasnah dismissed the steward, sending him back to his lord’s palace. She
knew he was withholding things from her—he claimed funds were low in
his master’s departure, and had given her barely ten kingsmarks worth of
gemstones. To a common citizen—or even many lower noblemen—that
amount would be a fortune, but she had to save most of it on the chance
of finding horses to purchase.
She sighed, rising on protesting feet then waving for Kemnar and his
guards to follow her from the room. A crowd no longer lingered outside
the inn. The palace stormkeeper warned that the Almighty’s Bellow was
now imminent, and had calculated that it would strike sometime during
the next day. With the natural procrastination of man, the village people
had realized they’d left a tenset separate preparations to the last moment, and the town was now furiously getting ready for the storm.
Glad for the respite of onlookers, Jasnah passed through the common
room and entered the feast hall—the large, rectangular room that had been
used to feed her people the night before. It no longer bore the remnants
of feasting. Taln had appropriated it, much to the inn owner’s chagrin,
to be used as a base of operations. Here is where he had organized and
catalogued the provisions they would need for their trek. Grains, dried
meats, and waterskins lay in careful heaps, along with the weapons they
had brought with them from the palace. Taln himself stood inside, beside
his monk friend, looking over a scroll of paper written in his own hand.
A young scribe stood at the side of the room, and she blushed as Jasnah
entered, glancing down in shamed discomfort. Jasnah shook her head at
the scene—Taln still seemed unaware of how unnatural his ability to read
seemed to most Rosharans.
Jasnah waved the poor girl free, and the child scampered from the room
with a bow. Taln looked up from his list. “Well?” he asked.
Jasnah shook her head. “We’ll have to do it without horses.”
Taln nodded, scribbling something at the bottom of his list with a
charcoal pen. Meridas probably wouldn’t take the news with such dis-
Brandon Sanderson - [Stormlight Archive 01] Page 62
