The Way of Kings (Stormlight Archive, The)

by Brandon Sanderson

  “I…” Dalinar said.

  “Of course it is,” Sadeas said. “You’ve been looking down on us like a man standing atop a single sheet of paper, who therefore thinks himself so high as to see for miles. Well, I think that book of Gavilar’s is crem, and the Codes are lies people pretended to follow so that they could justify their shriveled consciences. Damnation, I’ve got one of those shriveled consciences myself. But I didn’t want to see you maligned for this bungled attempt to kill the king. If you’d wanted him dead, you’d have just burned out his eyes and been done with it!”

  Sadeas took a drink of his steaming violet wine. “The problem is, Elhokar kept on and on about that blasted strap. And people started talking, since he was under your protection and you two rode off together like that. Stormfather only knows how they could think you would try to have Elhokar assassinated. You can barely bring yourself to kill Parshendi these days.” Sadeas stuffed a small piece of toasted bread in his mouth, then moved to walk away.

  Dalinar caught him by the arm again. “I…I owe you a debt. I shouldn’t have treated you as I have these six years.”

  Sadeas rolled his eyes, chewing his bread. “This wasn’t for you alone. So long as everyone thought you were behind the attempt, nobody would figure out who really tried to have Elhokar killed. And someone did, Dalinar. I don’t accept eight gemstones cracking in one fight. The strap alone would have been a ridiculous way to attempt an assassination, but with weakened Shardplate…I’m half tempted to believe that the surprise arrival of the chasmfiend was orchestrated too. How someone would manage that though, I have no idea.”

  “And the talk of me being framed?” Dalinar asked.

  “Mostly to give the others something to gossip about while I sort through what’s really happening.” Sadeas looked down at Dalinar’s hand on his arm. “Would you let go?”

  Dalinar released his grip.

  Sadeas set down his plate, straightening his robe and dusting off the shoulder. “I haven’t give up on you yet, Dalinar. I’m probably going to need you before this is all through. I do have to say, though, I don’t know what to make of you lately. That talk of you wanting to abandon the Vengeance Pact. Is there any truth to that?”

  “I mentioned it, in confidence, to Elhokar as a means of exploring options. So yes, there’s truth to it, if you must know. I’m tired of this fighting. I’m tired of these Plains, of being away from civilization, of killing Parshendi a handful at a time. However, I’ve given up on getting us to retreat. Instead, I want to win. But the highprinces won’t listen! They all assume that I’m trying to dominate them with some crafty trick.”

  Sadeas snorted. “You’d sooner punch a man in the face than stab him in the back. Blessedly straightforward.”

  “Ally with me,” Dalinar said after him.

  Sadeas froze.

  “You know I’m not going to betray you, Sadeas,” Dalinar said. “You trust me as the others never can. Try what I’ve been trying to get the other highprinces to agree to. Jointly assault plateaus with me.”

  “Won’t work,” Sadeas said. “There’s no reason to bring more than one army on an assault. I leave half my troops behind each time as it is. There isn’t room for more to maneuver.”

  “Yes, but think,” Dalinar said. “What if we tried new tactics? Your quick bridge crews are fast, but my troops are stronger. What if you pushed quickly to a plateau with an advance force to hold off the Parshendi? You could hold until my stronger, but slower, forces arrive.”

  That gave Sadeas pause.

  “It could mean a Shardblade, Sadeas.”

  Sadeas’s eyes grew hungry.

  “I know you’ve fought Parshendi Shardbearers,” Dalinar said, seizing on that thread, “But you’ve lost. Without a Blade, you’re at a disadvantage.” Parshendi Shardbearers had a habit of escaping after entering battles. Regular spearmen couldn’t kill one, of course. It took a Shardbearer to kill a Shardbearer. “I’ve slain two in the past. I don’t often have the opportunity, however, because I can’t get to the plateaus quickly enough. You can. Together, we can win more often, and I can get you a Blade. We can do this, Sadeas. Together. Like the old days.”

  “The old days,” he said idly. “I’d like to see the Blackthorn in battle again. How would we split the gemhearts?”

  “Two-thirds to you,” Dalinar said. “As you’ve got twice as good a record at winning assaults as I have.”

  Sadeas looked thoughtful. “And the Shardblades?”

  “If we find a Shardbearer, Adolin and I will take him. You win the Blade.” He raised a finger. “But I win the Plate. To give to my son, Renarin.”

  “The invalid?”

  “What would you care?” Dalinar said. “You already have Plate. Sadeas, this could mean winning the war. If we start to work together, we could bring the others in, prepare for a large-scale assault. Storms! We might not even need that. We two have the largest armies; if we could find a way to catch the Parshendi on a large enough plateau with the bulk of our troops—surrounding them so they couldn’t escape—we might be able to damage their forces enough to bring an end to this all.”

  Sadeas mulled it over. Then he shrugged. “Very well. Send me details via messenger. But do it later. I’ve already missed too much of tonight’s feast.”

  “A woman sits and scratches out her own eyes. Daughter of kings and winds, the vandal.”

  —Dated Palahevan, 1173, 73 seconds pre-death. Subject: a beggar of some renown, known for his elegant songs.

  One week after losing Dunny, Kaladin stood on another plateau, watching a battle proceed. This time, however, he didn’t have to save the dying. They’d actually arrived before the Parshendi. A rare but welcome event. Sadeas’s army was now holding out at the center of the plateau, protecting the chrysalis while some of his soldiers cut into it.

  The Parshendi kept leaping over the line and attacking the men working on the chrysalis. He’s getting surrounded, Kaladin thought. It didn’t look good, which would mean a miserable return trip. Sadeas’s men were bad enough when, arriving second, they were rebuffed. Losing the gemheart after arriving first…would leave them even more frustrated.

  “Kaladin!” a voice said. Kaladin spun to see Rock trotting up. Was someone wounded? “Have you seen this thing?” The Horneater pointed.

  Kaladin turned, following his gesture. Another army was approaching on an adjacent plateau. Kaladin raised eyebrows; the banners flapped blue, and the soldiers were obviously Alethi.

  “A little late, aren’t they?” Moash asked, standing beside Kaladin.

  “It happens,” Kaladin said. Occasionally another highprince would arrive after Sadeas got to the plateau. More often, Sadeas arrived first, and the other Alethi army had to turn around. Usually they didn’t get this close before doing so.

  “That’s the standard of Dalinar Kholin,” Skar said, joining them.

  “Dalinar,” Moash said appreciatively. “They say he doesn’t use bridgemen.”

  “How does he cross the chasms, then?” Kaladin asked.

  The answer soon became obvious. This new army had enormous, siege-tower-like bridges pulled by chulls. They rumbled across the uneven plateaus, often having to pick their way around rifts in the stone. They must be terribly slow, Kaladin thought. But, in trade, the army wouldn’t have to approach the chasm while being fired on. They could hide behind those bridges.

  “Dalinar Kholin,” Moash said. “They say he’s a true lighteyes, like the men from the old days. A man of honor and of oaths.”

  Kaladin snorted. “I’ve seen plenty of lighteyes with that same reputation, and I’ve been disappointed by them every time. I’ll tell you about Brightlord Amaram sometime.”

  “Amaram?” Skar asked. “The Shardbearer?”

  “You’ve heard of that?” Kaladin asked.

  “Sure,” Skar said. “He’s supposed to be on his way here. Everyone’s talking about it in the taverns. Were you with him when he won his Shards?”

  �
��No,” Kaladin said softly. “Nobody was.”

  Dalinar Kholin’s army approached across the plateau to the south. Amazingly, Dalinar’s army came right up to the battlefield plateau.

  “He’s attacking?” Moash said, scratching his head. “Maybe he figures that Sadeas will lose, and wants to take a stab at it after he retreats.”

  “No,” Kaladin said, frowning. “He’s joining the battle.”

  The Parshendi army sent over some archers to fire on Dalinar’s army, but their arrows bounced off the chulls without causing any harm. A group of soldiers unhooked the bridges and pushed them into place while Dalinar’s archers set up and exchanged fire with the Parshendi.

  “Does it seem Sadeas took fewer soldiers with him this run?” Sigzil asked, joining the group watching Dalinar’s army. “Perhaps he planned for this. Could be why he was willing to commit like he did, letting himself get surrounded.”

  The bridges could be cranked to lower and extend; there was some marvelous engineering at work. As they began to work, something decidedly strange happened: Two Shardbearers, likely Dalinar and his son, leaped across the chasm and began attacking the Parshendi. The distraction let the soldiers get the large bridges into place, and some heavy cavalry charged across to help. It was a completely different method of doing a bridge assault, and Kaladin found himself considering the implications.

  “He really is joining the battle,” Moash said. “I think they’re going to work together.”

  “It’s bound to be more effective,” Kaladin said. “I’m surprised they haven’t tried it before.”

  Teft snorted. “That’s because you don’t understand how lighteyes think. Highprinces don’t just want to win the battle, they want to win it by themselves.”

  “I wish I’d been recruited in his army instead,” Moash said, almost reverent. The soldiers’ armor gleamed, their ranks obviously well-practiced. Dalinar—the Blackthorn—had done an even better job than Amaram at cultivating a reputation for honesty. People knew of him all the way back in Hearthstone, but Kaladin understood the kinds of corruption a well-polished breastplate could hide.

  Though, he thought, that man who protected the whore on the street, he wore blue. Adolin, Dalinar’s son. He seemed genuinely selfless in his defense of the woman.

  Kaladin set his jaw, casting aside those thoughts. He would not be taken in again.

  He would not.

  The fighting grew brutal for a short time, but the Parshendi were overwhelmed—smashed between two opposing forces. Soon, Kaladin’s team led a victorious group of soldiers back to the camps for celebration.

  Kaladin rolled the sphere between his fingers. The otherwise pure glass had cooled with a thin line of bubbles permanently frozen along one side. The bubbles were tiny spheres of their own, catching light.

  He was on chasm scavenging duty. They’d gotten back from the plateau assault so quickly that Hashal, in defiance of logic or mercy, had sent them down into the chasm that very day. Kaladin continued to turn the sphere in his fingers. Hanging in the very center of it was a large emerald cut in a round shape, with dozens of tiny facets along the sides. A small rim of suspended bubbles clung to the side of gemstone, as if longing to be near its brilliance.

  Bright, crystalline green Stormlight shone from inside the glass, lighting Kaladin’s fingers. An emerald broam, the highest denomination of sphere. Worth hundreds of lesser spheres. To bridgemen, this was a fortune. A strangely distant one, for spending it was impossible. Kaladin thought he could see some of the storm’s tempest inside that rock. The light was like…it was like part of the storm, captured by the emerald. The light wasn’t perfectly steady; it just seemed that way compared with the flickering of candles, torches, or lamps. Holding it close, Kaladin could see the light swirling, raging.

  “What do we do with it?” Moash asked from Kaladin’s side. Rock stood at Kaladin’s other side. The sky was overcast, making it darker than usual here at the bottom. The cold weather of late had drawn back to spring, though it was uncomfortably chilly.

  The men worked efficiently, quickly gathering spears, armor, boots, and spheres from the dead. Because of the short time given them—and because of the exhausting bridge run earlier—Kaladin had decided to forgo spear practice for the day. They’d load up on salvage instead and stow some of it down beneath, to be used for avoiding punishment next time.

  As they’d worked, they’d found a lighteyed officer. He had been quite wealthy. This single emerald broam was worth what a bridgeman slave would make in two hundred days. In the same pouch with it, they’d found a collection of chips and marks that totaled slightly more than another emerald broam. Wealth. A fortune. Simply pocket change to a lighteyes.

  “With this we could feed those wounded bridgemen for months,” Moash said. “We could buy all the medical supplies we could want. Stormfather! We could probably bribe the camp’s perimeter guards to let us sneak away.’

  “This thing will not happen,” Rock said. “Is impossible to get spheres out of the chasms.”

  “We could swallow them,” Moash said.

  “You would choke. Spheres are too big, eh?”

  “I’ll bet I could do it,” Moash said. His eyes glittered, reflecting the verdant Stormlight. “That’s more money than I’ve ever seen. It’s worth the risk.”

  “Swallowing won’t work,” Kaladin said. “You think those guards who watch us in the latrines are there to keep us from fleeing? I’ll bet some sodden parshman has to go through our droppings, and I’ve seen them keep record of who visits and how often. We aren’t the first to think of swallowing spheres.”

  Moash hesitated, then sighed, crestfallen. “You’re probably right. Storm you, but you are. But we can’t just give it to them, can we?”

  “Yes, we can,” Kaladin said, closing his fist around the sphere. The glow was bright enough to make his hand shine. “We’d never be able to spend it. A bridgeman with a full broam? It would give us away.”

  “But—” Moash began.

  “We give it to them, Moash.” Then he held up the pouch containing the other spheres. “But we find a way to keep these.”

  Rock nodded. “Yes. If we give up this expensive sphere, they will think us honest, eh? It will disguise the theft, and they will even give us small reward. But how can we do this thing, keeping the pouch?”

  “I’m working on that,” Kaladin said.

  “Work fast, then,” Moash said, glancing at Kaladin’s torch, rammed between two rocks at the side of the chasm. “We’ll need to head back up soon.”

  Kaladin opened his hand and rolled the emerald sphere between his fingers. How? “Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?” Moash asked, staring at the emerald.

  “It’s just a sphere,” Kaladin said absently. “A tool. I once held a goblet full of a hundred diamond broams and was told they were mine. Since I never got to spend them, they were as good as worthless.”

  “A hundred diamonds?” Moash asked. “Where…how?”

  Kaladin closed his mouth, cursing himself. I shouldn’t keep mentioning things like that. “Go on,” he said, tucking the emerald broam back into the black pouch. “We need to be quick.”

  Moash sighed, but Rock thumped him on the back good-naturedly and they joined the rest of the bridgemen. Rock and Lopen—using Syl’s directions—had led them to a large mass of corpses in red-and-brown uniforms. He didn’t know which highprince’s men they were, but the bodies were pretty fresh. There were no Parshendi among them.

  Kaladin glanced to the side, where Shen—the parshman bridgeman—worked. Quiet, obedient, stalwart. Teft still didn’t trust him. A part of Kaladin was glad for that. Syl landed on the wall beside him, standing with her feet planted against the surface and looking up at the sky.

  Think, Kaladin told himself. How do we keep these spheres? There has to be a way. But each possibility seemed too much of a risk. If they were caught stealing, they’d probably be given a different work detail. Kaladin wasn’t willing to r
isk that.

  Silent green lifespren began to fade into existence around him, bobbing around the moss and haspers. A few frillblooms opened up fronds of red and yellow beside his head. Kaladin had thought again and again about Dunny’s death. Bridge Four was not safe. True, they’d lost a remarkably small number of men lately, but they were still dwindling. And each bridge run was a chance for total disaster. All it took was one time, with the Parshendi focusing on them. Lose three or four men, and they’d topple. The waves of arrows would redouble, cutting every one of them down.

  It was the same old problem, the one Kaladin had beaten his head against day after day. How did you protect bridgemen when everyone wanted them exposed and endangered?

  “Hey Sig,” Maps said, walking by carrying an armload of spears. “You’re a Worldsinger, right?” Maps had grown increasingly friendly in the last few weeks, and had proven good at getting the others talking. The balding man reminded Kaladin of an innkeeper, always quick to make his patrons feel at ease.

  Sigzil—who was pulling the boots off a line of corpses—gave Kaladin a straight-lipped glance that seemed to say, “This is your fault.” He didn’t like that others had discovered he was a Worldsinger.

  “Why don’t you give us a tale?” Maps said, setting down his armload. “Help us pass the time.”

  “I am not a foolish jester or storyteller,” Sigzil said, yanking off a boot. “I do not ‘give tales.’ I spread knowledge of cultures, peoples, thoughts, and dreams. I bring peace through understanding. It is the holy charge my order received from the Heralds themselves.”

  “Well why not start spreading then?” Maps said, standing and wiping his hands on his trousers.

  Sigzil signed audibly. “Very well. What is it you wish to hear about?”

  “I don’t know. Something interesting.”

  “Tell us about Brightking Alazansi and the hundred-ship fleet,” Leyten called.