Unfettered II: New Tales By Masters of Fantasy

by Shawn Speakman

  Though he’d fallen fifty feet, the bottom of the Rift was easily another hundred feet below. Growling, Dalinar made the only choice he could.

  He threw himself over the side of his walkway, dropping a short distance to another one below. This one looked sturdy enough. Even so, one foot smashed through the wooden planks, and he nearly ripped through completely.

  He heaved himself up and continued running across. Two more soldiers made for the posts holding up this one, and they began frantically hacking away.

  The walkway shook beneath Dalinar’s feet. Stormfather. He didn’t have much time, but there were no more walkways within jumping distance.

  Dalinar pushed himself to a run, desperate to reach the other side before the soldiers finished. He roared, footfalls cracking boards.

  A single black arrow fell from above, swooping like a skyeel. It dropped one of the soldiers. Another arrow followed, hitting the second soldier even as he gawked at his fallen ally. The walkway stopped shaking, and Dalinar grinned, pulling to a stop. He turned, spotting a man standing near the sheared-off section of stone above. He lifted a bow toward Dalinar.

  “Teleb, you storming miracle,” Dalinar said, continuing across the walkway. He reached the other side, plucked an axe from the hands of a dead man, then charged up a ramp toward where he’d seen Highlord Tanalan.

  He found the place easily, a wide wooden platform, built up on struts connected to parts of the wall below, draped with vines and blooming rockbuds. Lifespren scattered as Dalinar reached it.

  Centered in the garden stood Tanalan and a force of some fifty soldiers. Puffing inside his helm, Dalinar stepped up to confront them. Tanalan was armored in simple steel, no Shardplate, though a brutal-looking Shardblade—wide, with a hooked tip—appeared in his hand.

  He raised his weapon, barking for his soldiers to stand back and lower their bows. Then he strode forward toward Dalinar, holding the Shardblade with both hands.

  Standing between two squat trees, Dalinar set his stance. Everyone always fixated upon Shardblades. Specific weapons had lore dedicated to them, and people traced which kings or brightlords had carried which sword. If he’d cared more about such things, he could have cited the origins of the very blade Tanalan carried.

  Either way, it was the Blades people cared about. But Dalinar had used both, and if given the choice he’d pick Plate every time. All he needed to do was get in one solid hit on Tanalan, and the fight would be over. The highlord, however, had to contend with a foe who could resist his blows.

  The Thrill thrummed inside Dalinar. He started circling Tanalan, feeling him out. He kept his exposed left arm pointed away from the highlord while gripping the axe in his gauntleted right hand. Though it was a war axe, it felt like a child’s plaything.

  “You should not have come here, Dalinar,” Tanalan said. His voice bore a distinctively nasal accent common to this region. The Rifters always had considered themselves a people apart. “We had no quarrel with you or yours.”

  “You refused to submit to the king,” Dalinar said, armor plates scraping one another as he walked slowly around the highlord, while trying to keep an eye on the soldiers. He wouldn’t put it past them to attack him once he was distracted by the duel. It was what he himself would have done.

  “The king?” Tanalan demanded, angerspren boiling up around him. “There hasn’t been a throne in Alethkar for generations. Even if we were to have a king again, who is to say the Kholins deserve the mantle?”

  “The way I see it,” Dalinar said, “the people of Alethkar deserve a king who is strongest and most capable of leading them in battle. If only there were a way to prove that.” He grinned inside his helm.

  Tanalan made a straining sound, then attacked, sweeping in with his Shardblade and trying to leverage his superior reach. Dalinar danced back, waiting for his moment. The Thrill was a heady rush, a lust to prove himself—prove that Gavilar deserved to rule, that Alethkar deserved to have a king, and that Dalinar deserved Tanalan’s Shardblade.

  Tanalan swung again. Ideally, Dalinar would prolong this fight, relying on his Plate’s superior strength and the stamina it provided. Unfortunately, that Plate was still leaking, and he had all these guards to deal with. Still, he tried to play it as Tanalan would expect, dodging attacks, acting as if he were going to drag out the fight.

  Tanalan growled and came in again. Dalinar blocked the blow with his arm, then made a perfunctory swing with his axe. Tanalan dodged back easily. Stormfather, that Blade was long. Almost as tall as Dalinar was.

  Dalinar maneuvered, holding his unarmored side away from his enemy, brushing against the foliage of the garden. He couldn’t even feel the pain of his broken fingers anymore. The Thrill called to him.

  Wait. Act like you’re drawing this out as long as possible. . . .

  Tanalan advanced again, and Dalinar dodged backward, faster because of his Plate. And then when Tanalan tried his next strike, Dalinar ducked toward him.

  He deflected the Shardblade with his arm again, but this blow hit hard, shattering the arm plate. Still, Dalinar’s surprise rush let him lower his shoulder and slam it against Tanalan. The highlord tripped, but Dalinar was just off-balance enough from his rush to fall alongside the highlord.

  The platform shook as they hit the ground, the wood cracking. Damnation! Dalinar did not want to go to the ground while surrounded by foes. Still, there was no helping it if he wanted to be inside the reach of that Blade.

  Dalinar dropped off his right gauntlet—without the arm piece connecting it to the rest of the armor, it was dead weight—as the two of them twisted in a heap. He rolled, trying to position himself above Tanalan, where the weight of the Shardplate would keep his foe pinned. The highlord battered against Dalinar with the pommel of his sword, to no effect.

  Dalinar pushed his left forearm into Tanalan’s throat, making him gasp and drop his Blade, which puffed away to mist. Dalinar used his right hand to lift his axe, but as he did so, the soldiers rushed him.

  Just like he’d expected. Honorable duels like this—on a battlefield at least—always lasted only until your guy was losing.

  Dalinar rolled free, leaving Tanalan gasping. The soldiers obviously weren’t ready for how quickly he responded. He got to his feet in a blur and lashed out with his axe. The forearms and gauntlets of both arms were gone, but his right arm still had the pauldron down to the elbow brace, and so when he swung, he had power—a strange mix of Shard-enhanced strength and frailty from his exposed arms.

  He completely beheaded one attacker, then advanced through others, dropping three with a flurry of axe slices. Others backed away, blocking him with polearms as their fellows helped Tanalan to his feet.

  “You speak of the people,” Tanalan said hoarsely. “As if this were about them. As if it were for their good that you loot, you pillage, you murder. Our own people, Kholin! You’re an uncivilized brute.”

  “You can’t civilize war,” Dalinar said. “There’s no painting it up and making it pretty. You do what you need to win. That’s what everyone does.”

  “No,” Tanalan said. “You don’t have to pull sorrow behind you like a sled on the stones, scraping and crushing those you pass. You’re a monster.”

  “I’m a soldier,” Dalinar said, eyeing Tanalan’s men, many of whom were preparing their bows.

  Tanalan took a deep breath. “My city is lost. My plan has failed. But I can do Alethkar one last service. I can take you down, you bastard.”

  Dalinar roared as the archers started to loose, throwing himself to the ground, hitting it with the weight of Shardplate. The floor of the platform cracked around him, weakened by the fighting earlier, and he broke through it, shattering struts underneath.

  The entire platform came crashing down around him, and together, they fell toward the tier below. Dalinar heard screams, and he hit the next walkway down hard enough to daze him, even with Shardplate. Fortunately it stopped here, some ten feet below the garden’s previous perch.

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nbsp; Dalinar shook his head, groaning, finding his helm cracked right down the front, the uncommon vision granted by the armor spoiled. He pulled the helm free, gasping for breath, and glanced at his right arm.

  Splinters pierced his skin, including one shard large enough to look like a dagger. He grimaced, sitting up. Just below, the few remaining soldiers who had been positioned to cut down bridges came charging up toward him.

  Steady, Dalinar. Be ready to fight!

  He got to his feet, dazed, exhausted but the two soldiers didn’t come for him. They huddled around someone nearby: a body that had fallen from the platform when it had fallen.

  Tanalan. The soldiers grabbed him, then fled. Dalinar roared and awkwardly gave pursuit. His Plate moved slowly, and he stumbled through the wreckage of the fallen platform, trying to keep up with the soldiers and their unconscious leader.

  The pain from his arms made him mad with rage. But the Thrill, the Thrill drove him forward. He would not be beaten. He would not stop! Tanalan’s Shardblade had not appeared beside his body. That meant his foe still lived. Dalinar had not yet won.

  Fortunately, he didn’t encounter more resistance. Most of the soldiers in the city had been positioned to fight on the other side, where Sadeas and Gavilar clashed with Rifters. This side was practically empty, save for huddled townspeople—he caught glimpses of them hiding in their homes. Dalinar limped up ramps alongside the wall of the Rift, following the men dragging their brightlord. They weren’t much faster than him, encumbered as they were.

  Near the top of the Rift, the two soldiers stopped, setting their charge down beside an exposed portion of the chasm’s rock wall. They did something that caused a portion of that wall to open inward, revealing a hidden door. They towed their fallen brightlord into it, and two other soldiers—responding to their frantic calls—rushed out to meet Dalinar, who arrived moments later.

  Helmless, Dalinar saw red as he engaged them. They were armed; he was not. They were fresh, and he had wounds nearly incapacitating both arms.

  The two soldiers still ended on the ground, broken and bleeding. Dalinar kicked open the hidden door, Plated legs functioning enough to smash it down.

  He lurched into a small tunnel with diamond spheres glowing on the walls. That door was covered in hardened crem on the outside, making it seem like a part of the wall. If he hadn’t seen them enter, it would have taken days, maybe weeks to locate this place.

  He followed a trail of blood, and at the end of a short walk, found the two soldiers he’d followed. Judging by the blood trail, they’d deposited their Brightlord in the closed room beyond.

  They rushed Dalinar with the fatalistic determination of men who knew they were probably dead. Dalinar ducked forward, getting between them as they attacked. He shoved one against the wall with his still-armored shoulder, crushing the man, who let out a strangled whine. Then he kicked the legs out from beneath the other, before smashing his skull with a booted stomp.

  The pain in Dalinar’s arms and head seemed nothing before the Thrill. He had rarely felt it so strong as he did now, a beautiful clarity, such a wonderful emotion. He kicked open one last door and stepped into a room.

  Tanalan lay on the ground here, blood surrounding him. A beautiful woman lay draped across him, weeping. Only one other person was in the small chamber, a young boy. Six, perhaps seven. Tears streaked down the child’s face, and he struggled to lift his father’s Shardblade in two hands.

  Dalinar loomed in the doorway.

  “You can’t have my daddy,” the boy said, words mangled by his sorrow. Painspren crawled around the floor. “You can’t. You . . . you . . .” His voice fell to a whisper. “Daddy said . . . we fight monsters. And with faith, we will win. . . .”

  A few hours later, Dalinar sat on the edge of the Rift, with his legs swinging over the broken city below. His new Shardblade rested across his lap, his Plate—mangled and broken—in a heap beside him. His arms were bandaged, but he’d chased away the surgeons.

  He stared out at what seemed an empty plain, then flicked his eyes down, at the signs of human life below. Dead bodies in heaps. Broken buildings. Splinters of civilization.

  Gavilar eventually walked up, his pace lethargic. He groaned as he settled down beside Dalinar, removing his helm. Exhaustionspren spun overhead, but Dalinar couldn’t say which of the two had drawn them. Perhaps both.

  Tired or not, though, Gavilar looked thoughtful. With those keen, pale green eyes, he’d always seemed to know so much. Growing up, Dalinar had just assumed that his brother would always be right in whatever he said or did. Aging hadn’t much changed his opinion of the man.

  “Congratulations,” Gavilar said, nodding toward the Blade. “Sadeas is irate it wasn’t his.”

  “He’ll find one of his own eventually,” Dalinar said. “He’s too ambitious for me to believe otherwise.”

  Gavilar nodded, then looked down at the city. “This attack nearly cost us too much. Sadeas is saying we need to be more careful, not risk ourselves and our Shards. He’s probably right; it might be the last time we assault a wall on our own.”

  “Sadeas is smart,” Dalinar said. He reached gingerly with his right hand, the less mangled one, and raised a mug of wine to his lips. It was the only drug he cared about for the pain—and maybe it would help with the shame too. Both feelings seemed stark, now that the Thrill had receded and left him deflated.

  “What do we do with them, Dalinar?” Gavilar asked, waving down toward the crowds of the city’s civilians the soldiers were rounding up. “Tens of thousands of people. They won’t be cowed easily; they won’t like that you killed their highlord and his heir. Those people below, they’ll resist us for years. I can feel it.”

  Dalinar took a drink. “Make soldiers of them,” he said. “Tell them we’ll spare their families if they fight for us. You want to stop doing a Shardbearer rush at the start of battles? Sounds like we’ll need some expendable troops.”

  Gavilar nodded, thoughtful. “Sadeas is right about other things too, you know. About us. And what we’re going to have to become.”

  “Don’t talk to me about that,” Dalinar said, lying back.

  “Dalinar . . .”

  “I lost half my elites today, my captain included. I’ve got enough problems.”

  “Why are we here, fighting? Is it for honor? Is it for Alethkar?”

  Dalinar shrugged.

  “We can’t just keep acting like bunch of thugs,” Gavilar said. “We can’t rob every city we pass, feast every night. We need discipline; we need to hold the land we have. We need bureaucracy, order, laws, politics.”

  Dalinar closed his eyes, distracted by the shame he felt. What if Gavilar found out?

  “We’re going to have to grow up,” Gavilar said softly.

  “And become soft?” Dalinar said. “Like these highlords we kill? That’s why we started, isn’t it? Because they were all lazy, fat, corrupt?”

  “I don’t know anymore. I’m a father now, Dalinar. That makes me wonder about what we do once we have it all. What’s the next step? How do we make a kingdom of this place?”

  Storms. A kingdom. For the first time in his life, Dalinar found that idea horrifying.

  Gavilar eventually stood up, responding to some messengers who were calling for him. “Could you,” he said to Dalinar, “at least try to be a little less foolhardy in future battles?”

  “This coming from you?”

  “A thoughtful me,” Gavilar said. “An . . . exhausted me. Enjoy Oathbringer. You earned it.”

  “Oathbringer?”

  “Your sword,” Gavilar said. “Storms, didn’t you listen to anything last night? That is Sunmaker’s old sword.”

  Sadees, the Sunmaker. He had been the last man to unite Alethkar, centuries ago. Sadeas’s house was named after him.

  Dalinar held the weapon up in his wounded hand, letting the light play off the pristine blade.

  “It’s yours now,” Gavilar said, turning to meet the messengers. “
By the time we’re done, I’ll have it so that nobody even thinks of Sunmaker anymore. From here on out, it’s about us and Alethkar.”

  He walked away. Dalinar rammed the Shardblade into the stone and leaned back, closing his eyes again and remembering the sound of a brave boy crying.

  Twenty-Eight Years Ago

  A candle flickered on the table, and Dalinar lit the end of his napkin in it, sending a small braid of pungent smoke into the air. Stupid decorative candles. What was the point? Looking pretty? Didn’t they use spheres because they were better than candles for light?

  At a glare from Gavilar, Dalinar stopped burning his napkin and leaned back, nursing a mug of deep violet wine. The kind you could smell from across the room, potent and flavorful. A feast hall spread before him, dozens of tables set on the floor of the large stone room. The place was far too warm, and sweat prickled on his arms and forehead. Too many candles maybe.

  Outside the feast hall, a storm raged like a madman who’d been locked away, impotent and ignored.

  “But how do you deal with highstorms, Brightlord?” Toh said to Gavilar. The tall, blond-haired westerner sat with them at the high table.

  “Good planning keeps an army from needing to be out during a storm except in rare situations,” Gavilar explained. “Holdings in Alethkar are frequent. If a campaign takes longer than anticipated, we can split the army and retreat back to a number of these towns for shelter.”

  “And if you’re in the middle of a siege?” Toh asked.

  “Sieges are uncommon out here, Brightlord Toh,” Gavilar said, chuckling.

  “Surely there are cities with fortifications,” Toh said. “Your famed Kholinar has majestic walls, does it not?”

  The westerner had a thick accent, and kept drawing out his ‘oh’ and ‘ah’ sounds. Sounded silly.