The Way of Kings (Stormlight Archive, The)

by Brandon Sanderson

  For now, he wore Adolin’s. They had collected all of the infused gemstones among his twenty-six hundred men and used that Stormlight to recharge and reinforce his armor. It was still scarred with cracks. Healing as much damage as it had sustained would take days, but the Plate was in fighting shape again, if it came to that.

  He needed to make certain it didn’t. He intended to confront Sadeas, and he wanted to be armored when he did. In fact, he wanted to storm up the incline to Sadeas’s warcamp and declare formal war on his “old friend.” Perhaps summon his Blade and see Sadeas dead.

  But he wouldn’t. His soldiers were too weak, his position too tenuous. Formal war would destroy him and the kingdom. He had to do something else. Something that protected the kingdom. Revenge would come. Eventually. Alethkar came first.

  He lowered his blue-gauntleted fist, gripping Gallant’s reins. Adolin rode a short distance away. They’d repaired his armor as well, though he now lacked a gauntlet. Dalinar had refused the gift of his son’s gauntlet at first, but had given in to Adolin’s logic. If one of them was going to go without, it should be the younger man. Inside Shardplate, their differences in age didn’t matter—but outside of it, Adolin was a young man in his twenties and Dalinar an aging man in his fifties.

  He still didn’t know what to think of the visions, and their apparent failure in telling him to trust Sadeas. He’d confront that later. One step at a time.

  “Elthal,” Dalinar called. The highest-ranked officer who had survived the disaster, Elthal was a limber man with a distinguished face and a thin mustache. His arm was in a sling. He’d been one of those to hold the gap alongside Dalinar during the last part of the fight.

  “Yes, Brightlord?” Elthal asked, jogging over to Dalinar. All of the horses save the two Ryshadium were carrying wounded.

  “Take the wounded to my warcamp,” Dalinar said. “Then tell Teleb to bring the entire camp to alert. Mobilize the remaining companies.”

  “Yes, Brightlord,” the man said, saluting. “Brightlord, what should I tell them to prepare for?”

  “Anything. But hopefully nothing.”

  “I understand, Brightlord,” Elthal said, leaving to follow the orders.

  Dalinar turned Gallant to march over to the group of bridgemen, still following their somber leader, a man named Kaladin. They’d left their bridge as soon as they’d reached the permanent bridges; Sadeas could send for it eventually.

  The bridgemen stopped as he approached, looking as tired as he felt, then arranged themselves in a subtly hostile formation. They clung to their spears, as if certain he’d try to take them away. They had saved him, yet they obviously didn’t trust him.

  “I’m sending my wounded back to my camp,” Dalinar said. “You should go with them.”

  “You’re confronting Sadeas?” Kaladin asked.

  “I must.” I have to know why he did what he did. “I will buy your freedom when I do.”

  “Then I’m staying with you,” Kaladin said.

  “Me too,” said a hawk-faced man at the side. Soon all of the bridgemen were demanding to stay.

  Kaladin turned to them. “I should send you back.”

  “What?” asked an older bridgeman with a short grey beard. “You can risk yourself, but we can’t? We have men back in Sadeas’s camp. We need to get them out. At the very least, we need to stay together. See this through.”

  The others nodded. Again, Dalinar was struck by their discipline. More and more, he was certain Sadeas had nothing to do with that. It was this man at their head. Though his eyes were dark brown, he held himself like a brightlord.

  Well, if they wouldn’t go, Dalinar wouldn’t force them. He continued to ride, and soon close to a thousand of Dalinar’s soldiers broke off and marched south, toward his warcamp. The rest of them continued, toward Sadeas’s camp. As they drew closer, Dalinar noticed a small crowd gathering at the final chasm. Two figures in particular stood at their forefront. Renarin and Navani.

  “What are they doing in Sadeas’s warcamp?” Adolin asked, smiling through his fatigue, edging Sureblood up beside Dalinar.

  “I don’t know,” Dalinar said. “But the Stormfather bless them for coming.” Seeing their welcome faces, he began to feel it sink in—finally—that he had survived the day.

  Gallant crossed the last bridge. Renarin was there waiting, and Dalinar rejoiced.

  For once, the boy was displaying outright joy. Dalinar swung free from the saddle and embraced his son.

  “Father,” Renarin said, “you live!”

  Adolin laughed, swinging out of his own saddle, armor clanking. Renarin pulled out of the embrace and grabbed Adolin on the shoulder, pounding the Shardplate lightly with his other hand, grinning widely. Dalinar smiled as well, turning from the brothers to look at Navani. She stood with hands clasped before her, one eyebrow raised. Her face, oddly, bore a few small smears of red paint.

  “You weren’t even worried, were you?” he said to her.

  “Worried?” she asked. Her eyes met his, and for the first time, he noticed their redness. “I was terrified.”

  And then Dalinar found himself grabbing her in an embrace. He had to be careful as he was in Shardplate, but the gauntlets let him feel the silk of her dress, and his missing helm let him smell the sweet floral scent of her perfumed soap. He held her as tightly as he dared, bowing his head and pressing his nose into her hair.

  “Hmm,” she noted warmly, “it appears that I was missed. The others are watching. They’ll talk.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Hmm… It appears I was very much missed.”

  “On the battlefield,” he said gruffly, “I thought I would die. And I realized it was all right.”

  She pulled her head back, looking confused.

  “I have spent too much of my time worrying about what people think, Navani. When I thought my time had arrived, I realized that all my worrying had been wasted. In the end, I was pleased with how I had lived my life.” He looked down at her, then mentally unlatched his right gauntlet, letting it drop to the ground with a clank. He reached up with that callused hand, cupping her chin. “I had only two regrets. One for you, and one for Renarin.”

  “So, you’re saying you can just die, and it would be all right?”

  “No,” he said. “What I’m saying is that I faced eternity, and I saw peace there. That will change how I live.”

  “Without all of the guilt?”

  He hesitated. “Being me, I doubt I’ll banish it entirely. The end was peace, but living… that is a tempest. Still, I see things differently now. It is time to stop letting myself be shoved around by lying men.” He looked up, toward the ridge above, where more soldiers in green were gathering. “I keep thinking of one of the visions,” he said softly, “the latest one, where I met Nohadon. He rejected my suggestion that he write down his wisdom. There’s something there. Something I need to learn.”

  “What?” Navani asked.

  “I don’t know yet. But I’m close to figuring it out.” He held her close again, hand on the back of her head, feeling her hair. He wished for the Plate to be gone, to not be separated from her by the metal.

  But the time for that had not yet come. Reluctantly, he released her, turning to the side, where Renarin and Adolin were watching them uncomfortably. His soldiers were looking up at Sadeas’s army, gathering on the ridge.

  I can’t let this come to bloodshed, Dalinar thought, reaching down and putting his hand into the fallen gauntlet. The straps tightened, connecting to the rest of the armor. But I’m also not going to slink back to my camp without confronting him. He at least had to know the purpose of the betrayal. All had been going so well.

  Besides, there was the matter of his promise to the bridgemen. Dalinar walked up the slope, bloodstained blue cloak flapping behind him. Adolin clanked up next to him on one side, Navani keeping pace on the other. Renarin followed, Dalinar’s remaining sixteen hundred troops marching up as well.

  “Father
…” Adolin said, looking at the hostile troops.

  “Don’t summon your Blade. This will not come to blows.”

  “Sadeas abandoned you, didn’t he?” Navani asked quietly, eyes alight with anger.

  “He didn’t just abandon us,” Adolin spat. “He set us up, then betrayed us.”

  “We survived,” Dalinar said firmly. The way ahead was becoming clearer. He knew what he needed to do. “He won’t attack us here, but he might try to provoke us. Keep your sword as mist, Adolin, and don’t let our troops make any mistakes.”

  The soldiers in green parted reluctantly, holding spears. Hostile. To the side, Kaladin and his bridgemen walked near the front of Dalinar’s force.

  Adolin didn’t summon his Blade, though he regarded Sadeas’s troops around them with contempt. Dalinar’s soldiers couldn’t have felt easy about being surrounded by enemies once again, but they followed him onto the staging field. Sadeas stood ahead. The treacherous highprince waited with arms folded, still wearing his Shardplate, curly black hair blowing in the breeze. Someone had burned an enormous thath glyph on the stones here, and Sadeas stood at its center.

  Justice. There was something magnificently appropriate about Sadeas standing there, treading upon justice.

  “Dalinar,” Sadeas exclaimed, “old friend! It appears that I overestimated the odds against you. I apologize for retreating when you were still in danger, but the safety of my men came first. I’m certain you understand.”

  Dalinar stopped a short distance from Sadeas. The two faced each other, collected armies tense. A cold breeze whipped at a canopy behind Sadeas.

  “Of course,” Dalinar said, his voice even. “You did what you had to do.”

  Sadeas relaxed visibly, though several of Dalinar’s soldiers muttered at that. Adolin silenced them with pointed glances.

  Dalinar turned, waving Adolin and his men backward. Navani gave him a raised eyebrow, but retreated with the others when he urged her. Dalinar looked back at Sadeas, and the man—looking curious—waved his own attendants back.

  Dalinar walked up to the edge of the thath glyph, and Sadeas stepped forward until only inches separated them. They were matched in height. Standing this close, Dalinar thought he could see tension—and anger—in Sadeas’s eyes. Dalinar’s survival had ruined months of planning.

  “I need to know why,” Dalinar asked, too quietly for any but Sadeas to hear.

  “Because of my oath, old friend.”

  “What?” Dalinar asked, hands forming fists.

  “We swore something together, years ago.” Sadeas sighed, losing his flippancy and speaking openly. “Protect Elhokar. Protect this kingdom.”

  “That’s what I was doing! We had the same purpose. And we were fighting together, Sadeas. It was working.”

  “Yes,” Sadeas said. “But I’m confident I can beat the Parshendi on my own now. Everything we’ve done together, I can manage by splitting my army into two—one to race on ahead, a larger force to follow. I had to take this chance to remove you. Dalinar, can’t you see? Gavilar died because of his weakness. I wanted to attack the Parshendi from the start, conquer them. He insisted on a treaty, which led to his death. Now you’re starting to act just like him. Those same ideas, the same ways of speaking. Through you they begin to infect Elhokar. He dresses like you. He talks of the Codes to me, and of how perhaps we should enforce them through all the warcamps. He’s beginning to think of retreating.”

  “And so you’d have me think this an act of honor?” Dalinar growled.

  “Not at all,” Sadeas said, chuckling. “I have struggled for years to become Elhokar’s most trusted advisor—but there was always you, distracting him, holding his ear despite my every effort. I won’t pretend this was only about honor, though there was an element of that to it. In the end, I just wanted you gone.”

  Sadeas’s voice grew cold. “But you are going insane, old friend. You may name me a liar, but I did what I did today as a mercy. A way of letting you die in glory, rather than watching you descend further and further. By letting the Parshendi kill you, I could protect Elhokar from you and turn you into a symbol to remind the others what we’re really doing here. Your death might have become what finally united us. Ironic, if you consider it.”

  Dalinar breathed in and out. It was hard not to let his anger, his indignation, consume him. “Then tell me one thing. Why not pin the assassination attempt on me? Why clear me, if you were only looking to betray me later on?”

  Sadeas snorted softly. “Bah. Nobody would really believe that you tried to kill the king. They’d gossip, but they wouldn’t believe it. Blaming you too quickly would have risked implicating myself.” He shook his head. “I think Elhokar knows who tried to kill him. He’s admitted as much to me, though he won’t give me the name.”

  What? Dalinar thought. He knows? But… how? Why not tell us who? Dalinar adjusted his plans. He wasn’t certain if Sadeas was telling the truth, but if he was, he could use this.

  “He knows it wasn’t you,” Sadeas continued. “I can read that much in him, though he doesn’t realize how transparent he is. Blaming you would have been pointless. Elhokar would have defended you, and I might very well have lost the position of Highprince of Information. But it did give me a wonderful opportunity to make you trust me again.”

  Unite them…. The visions. But the man who spoke to Dalinar in them had been dead wrong. Acting with honor hadn’t won Sadeas’s loyalty. It had just opened Dalinar up to betrayal.

  “If it means anything,” Sadeas said idly, “I’m fond of you. I really am. But you are a boulder in my path, and a force working—against its own knowledge— to destroy Gavilar’s kingdom. When the chance came along, I took it.”

  “It wasn’t simply a convenient opportunity,” Dalinar said. “You set this up, Sadeas.”

  “I planned, but I’m often planning. I don’t always act on my options. Today I did.”

  Dalinar snorted. “Well, you’ve shown me something today, Sadeas— shown it to me by the very act of trying to remove me.”

  “And what was that?” Sadeas asked, amused.

  “You’ve shown me that I’m still a threat.”

  The highprinces continued their low-pitched conversation. Kaladin stood to the side of Dalinar’s soldiers, exhausted, with the members of Bridge Four.

  Sadeas spared a glance for them. Matal stood in the crowd, and had been watching Kaladin’s team the entire time, red-faced. Matal probably knew that he would be punished as Lamaril had been. They should have learned. They should have killed Kaladin at the start.

  They tried, he thought. They failed.

  He didn’t know what had happened to him, what had gone on with Syl and the words in his head. It seemed that Stormlight worked better for him now. It had been more potent, more powerful. But now it was gone, and he was so tired. Drained. He’d pushed himself, and Bridge Four, too far. Too hard.

  Perhaps he and the others should have gone to Kholin’s camp. But Teft was right; they needed to see this through.

  He promised, Kaladin thought. He promised he would free us from Sadeas.

  And yet, where had the promises of lighteyes gotten him in the past?

  The highprinces broke off their conference, separating, stepping back from one another.

  “Well,” Sadeas said loudly, “your men are obviously tired, Dalinar. We can speak later about what went wrong, though I think it is safe to assume that our alliance has proven unfeasible.”

  “Unfeasible,” Dalinar said. “A kind way of putting it.” He nodded toward the bridgemen. “I will take these bridgemen with me to my camp.”

  “I’m afraid I cannot part with them.”

  Kaladin’s heart sank.

  “Surely they aren’t worth much to you,” Dalinar said. “Name your price.”

  “I’m not looking to sell.”

  “I will pay sixty emerald broams per man,” Dalinar said. That drew gasps from the watching soldiers on both sides. It was easily twenty times
the price of a good slave.

  “Not for a thousand each, Dalinar,” Sadeas said. Kaladin could see the deaths of his bridgemen in those eyes. “Take your soldiers and go. Leave my property here.”

  “Do not press me on this, Sadeas,” Dalinar said.

  Suddenly, the tension was back. Dalinar’s officers lowered hands to swords, and his spearmen perked up, gripping the hafts of their weapons.

  “Do not press you?” Sadeas asked. “What kind of threat is that? Leave my camp. It’s obvious that there is nothing more between us. If you try to steal my property, I will have every justification in attacking you.”

  Dalinar stood in place. He looked confident, though Kaladin saw no reason why. And another promise dies, Kaladin thought, turning away. In the end, for all his good intentions, this Dalinar Kholin was the same as the others.

  Behind Kaladin, men gasped in surprise.

  Kaladin froze, then spun around. Dalinar Kholin had summoned his massive Shardblade; it dripped beads of water from having just been summoned. His armor steamed faintly, Stormlight rising from the cracks.

  Sadeas stumbled back, eyes wide. His honor guard drew their swords. Adolin Kholin reached his hand to the side, apparently beginning to summon his own weapon.

  Dalinar took one step forward, then drove his Blade point-first into the middle of the blackened glyph on the stone. He took a step back. “For the bridgemen,” he said.

  Sadeas blinked. Muttering voices fell silent, and the people on the field seemed too stunned, even, to breathe.

  “What?” Sadeas asked.

  “The Blade,” Dalinar said, firm voice carrying in the air. “In exchange for your bridgemen. All of them. Every one you have in camp. They become mine, to do with as I please, never to be touched by you again. In exchange, you get the sword.”

  Sadeas looked down at the Blade, incredulous. “This weapon is worth fortunes. Cities, palaces, kingdoms.”

  “Do we have a deal?” Dalinar asked.

  “Father, no!” Adolin Kholin said, his own Blade appearing in his hand. “You—”

  Dalinar raised a hand, silencing the younger man. He kept his eyes on Sadeas. “Do we have a deal?” he asked, each word sharp.