In the hand hidden behind the back of a server clearing Gavilar’s plates.
Dalinar kicked at his brother’s chair, breaking a leg off and sending Gavilar toppling to the ground. The assassin swung at the same moment, clipping Gavilar’s ear, but otherwise missing. The wild swing struck the table, driving the knife into the wood.
Dalinar leaped to his feet, reaching over Gavilar and grabbing the assassin by the neck. He spun the would-be killer around and slammed him to the ground with a satisfying crunch. Still in motion, Dalinar grabbed the knife from the table and slammed it into the assassin’s chest.
Puffing, Dalinar stepped back and wiped the rainwater from his eyes. Gavilar sprang to his feet, Shardblade appearing in his hand. He looked down at the assassin, then over at Dalinar.
Dalinar kicked at the assassin to be sure he was dead. Then he nodded to himself, righted his chair, sat down, then leaned over and yanked the man’s knife from his chest. Good blade.
He washed it off in his wine, then cut off a piece of his steak and shoved it into his mouth. Finally.
“Good pork,” Dalinar noted around the bite.
Across the room, Toh and his sister were staring at Dalinar with looks that mixed awe and terror. He caught a few shockspren around them, like beads of blue light, breaking and reforming. Rare spren, those were.
Gavilar finally settled down, waving away the guards who—belatedly—rushed to help. Navani clutched his arm, obviously shaken by the attack.
Again, everyone in the feast was gawking at the high table. Dalinar cut his steak again, shoving another piece into his mouth. What? He wasn’t going to drink the wine he’d washed the blood into. He wasn’t a barbarian.
“I know I said I wanted you free to make your own choice in regard to a bride,” Gavilar said, leaning in. “But . . .”
“I’ll do it,” Dalinar said, eyes forward. Navani was lost to him. He needed to just storming accept that.
“They’re timid and careful,” Navani noted. “It might take more time to persuade them.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” Gavilar said, looking back at the corpse. “Dalinar is nothing if not persuasive.”
Twenty-Five Years Ago
Incense burned in a brazier, big as a boulder. Dalinar sniffled as his betrothed, Evi, approached and threw a handful of tiny papers—each folded and inscribed with a very small glyph—into the brazier. Fragrant smoke washed over him, then whipped in the other direction as winds ripped through the warcamp, carrying windspren like lines of light that rippled the tents.
Evi bowed her head before the brazier. Among her people, simple glyphwards weren’t enough. You needed something more pungent to attract the heralds’ attention. This incense could probably be smelled all the way to Jah Keved.
She had strange beliefs, his betrothed. Oh, the Heralds were sprinkled in: talk of Jezrien and Kelek, though she said their names strangely: Yaysi and Kellai. But of the Almighty, no mention was made—instead she spoke of something called the One, a heretical tradition the priests told him came from Iri.
Dalinar bowed his head for a prayer. Let me be stronger than those who would kill me. Simple and to the point, the kind he figured the Almighty would prefer. He’d have ordered it written and burned, as was proper, but didn’t feel like having Evi write it out.
“The One watch you, near-husband,” Evi murmured. “And soften your temper.” Her accent, to which he was now accustomed, was thicker than her brother’s.
“Soften it? Evi, that’s not really the point of battle.”
She stepped up to him, picking at a speck on his uniform. “You needn’t kill in anger, Dalinar. If you must fight, do it knowing that each death wounds the One. For we are all people in Yaysi’s sight.”
“Yeah, all right,” Dalinar said, glancing toward the battlefield. The ardents didn’t seem to mind that he was marrying someone half pagan. “Your wisdom in bringing her to Vorin truth can do only good,” Jevena—Gavilar’s head ardent—had told him. Similar to how she’d spoken of their conquest. “Your sword will bring strength and glory to the Almighty.”
Idly, he wondered what it would take to actually earn the ardents’ displeasure.
Evi reached up and turned his head back toward her. “Be a man and not a beast, Dalinar.” Then she pulled close to him, setting her head on his shoulder and encouraging him to wrap his arms around her.
He did so with a limp gesture. Storms, he could hear the soldiers snicker as they passed by. The Blackthorn, being consoled before battle? Publicly hugging and acting lovey? The thought nauseated him, but this was how Evi was. She always wanted to be touched.
She turned her head toward him for a kiss, and he presented a chaste one, their lips barely touching. She accepted that, finally prying herself from him. She smiled, and she did have a beautiful smile. Life would have been a lot easier for him if Evi would have just been willing to move along with the marriage. But her traditions demanded a long engagement for a wedding like this, and her brother kept trying to get new provisions for them into the contract.
Dalinar stomped away. In his pocket he held another glyphward, one provided by Navani. She had made it for him, along with the one for Gavilar, as she was obviously worried about the accuracy of Evi’s foreign script. He felt at the smooth paper, and didn’t burn the prayer.
The stone ground beneath his feet was pocked with tiny holes—the pinpricks of hiding grass. As he passed the tents he could see it properly, covering the plain outside the camp and waving in the wind. Tall stuff, almost as high as his waist. He’d never seen grass that tall in all of Alethkar.
Across the plain, another army gathered. An impressive force, larger than any they’d faced during their years of conquest. His heart jumped in anticipation. After two years of political maneuvering, with barely a skirmish to speak of, here they were. A real battle with a real army.
Win or lose, this was the fight for the kingdom. The sun was on its way up, and the armies had arrayed themselves north and south, so neither would have it in their eyes.
Dalinar hastened to his armorer’s tent, and emerged a short time later in his Plate. The enhanced strength only added to his eager anticipation, and he practically leaped into the saddle as one of the grooms brought his horse. The large black beast wasn’t fast, but it could carry a man in Shardplate. Dalinar settled into place and guided the horse past ranks of soldiers—spearmen, archers, lighteyed heavy infantry, even a nice group of fifty cavalrymen with hooks and ropes for attacking enemy Shardbearers.
They shouldn’t be needed. Gavilar’s force now had almost a dozen Shardbearers, and many others in Alethkar had chosen to abstain from this fight, waiting to give their allegiance to the victor.
Dalinar still smelled incense when he found his brother, geared up and mounted, patrolling down the front lines. Dalinar trotted up beside Gavilar.
“Your young friend didn’t show for the battle,” Gavilar noted.
“Sebarial?” Dalinar said. “He’s not my friend.”
“There’s a hole in the enemy line, still waiting for him,” Gavilar said, pointing. “But reports say he had a problem with his supply lines, delaying him.”
“Lies,” Dalinar said. “He’s a coward. If he’d arrived, he’d have had to actually pick a side.”
“He might be a coward, but he’s no idiot,” Gavilar said. “If Kalanor wins the day, Sebarial can claim the delay wasn’t his fault, and that he wanted to help. If we win, Sebarial can claim he delayed intentionally in order to aid us.”
They rode past Tearim, Gavilar’s captain of the guard, who wore Dalinar’s extra Plate for this battle. Technically that still belonged to Evi. Not Toh, but Evi herself, which was strange. What would a woman do with Shardplate?
Give it to a husband, apparently. Tearim saluted. He was capable with Shards, having trained, as did many aspiring lighteyes, with borrowed sets.
“You’ve done well, Dalinar,” Gavilar said as they rode past. “That Plate will serve
us today.”
Dalinar made no reply. Even though Evi and her brother had delayed such a painfully long time to even agree to the betrothal, Dalinar had done his duty. He felt proud of that, proud that he could do something useful off the battlefield.
He just wished he felt more for the woman. Some passion, some true emotion. He couldn’t laugh around her without her seeming confused by the conversation. He couldn’t boast without her being disappointed in his bloodlust. She always wanted him to hold her, as if being alone for one storming minute would make her wither and blow away in the next stiff breeze. And . . .
And well, he guessed he did have feelings for Evi. They were simply the wrong kind.
“Ho!” one of the scouts called from a wooden mobile tower. She pointed, her voice distant. “Ho, there!”
Dalinar turned, expecting an advance attack from the enemy. But no, Kalanor’s army was still forming up. It wasn’t men that had attracted the scout’s attention, but horses. A small herd of them, eleven or twelve in number, galloping across the battlefield. Proud, majestic. He’d never seen their like in the wild before.
“Ryshadium,” Gavilar whispered. “It’s rare they roam this far east.”
Dalinar swallowed an order to round up the beasts. Ryshadium? Yes . . . he could see the spren trailing after them in the air. Music-spren, for some reason. Made no storming sense. Well, no use trying to capture the beasts. They couldn’t be held.
Dalinar deflated, watching them gallop away past the broken rock formations on the far side of the plain. An incredible wealth in horseflesh, just allowed to run off.
“I want you to do something for me today, brother,” Gavilar said, tearing his eyes away from the distant horses.
“If this about those stupid codes again, Gavilar . . .”
“No. Not today. Today, I suspect I may need more of the Blackthorn than I do of the codes.”
“Good.”
“Highprince Kalanor himself needs to fall. As long as he lives, there will be resistance. If he dies, his line goes with him. His cousin, Loradar Vamah, can seize power.”
“Will Loradar swear to you?”
“I’m certain of it,” Gavilar said.
“Then I’ll find Kalanor,” Dalinar said, “and end this.”
“He won’t join the battle easily, knowing him. But he’s a Shardbearer. And so . . .”
“So we need to force him to engage.”
Gavilar smiled.
“What?” Dalinar said.
“I’m simply pleased to see you talking of tactics.”
“I’m not an idiot,” Dalinar growled. He always paid attention to the tactics of a battle; he just wasn’t one for endless meetings and jaw wagging.
Though . . . even those seemed more tolerable these days. Perhaps it was familiarity. Or maybe it was Gavilar’s talk of forging a dynasty. It was the increasingly obvious truth that this campaign—now stretching over many years—was no quick bash and grab.
“Well,” Gavilar said, “if you understand that we need to draw out Kalanor, you can see why we need the Blackthorn today.”
“All you need do is unleash him.”
“Ha! As if anyone existed who could leash him in the first place.”
Isn’t that what you’ve been trying to do? Dalinar thought immediately. Marrying me off, talking of “codes” that, by no coincidence, highlight everything I do that you don’t like?
He bit his tongue, and they finished their ride down the lines. They parted with a nod, and Dalinar rode over to join his elites.
“Orders, sir?” asked Rien.
“Stay out of my way,” Dalinar said, lowering his faceplate. The Shardplate helm sealed closed, and a hush fell over the elites. Dalinar summoned Oathbringer, the sword of a fallen king, and waited. The enemy would have to make the first move; they were the ones who had been forced to come and attempt to stop Gavilar’s continued pillage of the countryside.
Dalinar could see the purpose of these last few months spent attacking isolated, unprotected towns. It had made for unfulfilling battles, but it had also put Kalanor in a terrible position. If he sat back in his strongholds, he allowed more of his vassals to be destroyed. Already those were starting to wonder why they paid Kalanor taxes. A handful had preemptively sent messengers to Gavilar saying they would not resist.
The region was on the brink of flipping to the Kholins. And so, Highprince Kalanor had been forced to send out his armies—leaving behind his fortifications to engage here, on even terms.
Dalinar shifted on his horse, waiting, planning. The moment came soon enough; Kalanor’s forces started across the plain in a cautious wave, anticipationspren sprouting from the ground around them, waving like ribbons. The soldiers raised their shields up toward the sky as they advanced, and Gavilar’s archers released flights of arrows. Kalanor’s men were well trained; they maintained their formations beneath the hail of arrows.
When the enemy arrived, Kholin heavy infantry met them—a block of men so armored that they might as well have been solid stone. At the same time, mobile archer units sprang out to the sides. These men spent no more time training with the bow than they did simply running. Lightly armored, they were fast. If the Kholin won this battle—and Dalinar was confident they would—it was because of the newer battlefield tactics they’d been exploring.
With this positioning, the enemy army found itself flanked—arrows pounding the sides of their assault blocks. This caused the blocks to stretch out as the infantry tried to reach the archers. That weakened the central block, which suffered a beating from the heavy infantry. Gavilar employed the standard spearmen too, but these engaged enemy units as much to position them as to do them harm.
This all happened on the scale of the battlefield. Dalinar had to climb off his horse, and send a groom to walk the animal, as he waited. The battle moved slowly, and Dalinar had to fight back the Thrill, which wanted him to ride in and find a contest.
No, he’d do his duty. He’d find blood soon enough. Eventually, when the time was right, he picked a section of Kholin troops who were faring poorly against the enemy block. Good enough. He remounted, and kicked his horse into a gallop. This was the right moment. He could feel it. He needed to strike now, when the battle was pivoting between victory and loss, to draw out his enemy.
Frightened grass wriggled and pulled back. This was Alethkar, where storms were strong, and the grass was quick—so as he rode, a wave of it fell before him. Like subjects bowing. This might be the end, his final battle in the conquest of Alethkar. What happened to him after this? Endless feasts with politicians? A brother who refused to look elsewhere for conquest?
Dalinar opened himself to the Thrill and drove away such worries. This could be his last chance to savor the battle, and he intended to make the most of it.
He hit the line of enemy troops like a highstorm striking a stack of papers. Soldiers scattered before him, shouting. Dalinar lay about with his Shardblade, killing dozens on one side, then on the other.
Eyes burned, arms fell limp. Dalinar breathed in the joy of the conquest, the narcotic beauty of destruction. None could stand before him; all were tinder and he the flame. Within the press of the soldier block, they should have been able to band together and rush him, but they were too frightened.
And why shouldn’t they be? People spoke of common men bringing down a Shardbearer, but he was sure it had never actually happened. Surely that was a fabrication, intended to make men fight back. A conceit to save a Shardbearer from having to work too hard to hunt them down.
He grinned as his horse stumbled trying to cross the bodies piling around it. Dalinar kicked the beast forward, and it leaped—but as it landed, something gave. The creature screamed and collapsed, dumping him.
He sighed, shoving aside the horse and standing. He’d broken its back; Shardplate was not meant for such common beasts.
One group of soldiers tried a counterattack. Brave, but stupid. Dalinar felled them with broad sweeps of his Shardbl
ade, then leaped over their corpses and ran down another group trying to retreat.
Next, a lighteyed officer with some grit organized his men to come in at Dalinar, to press and try to trap him if not with their skill, then their weight of bodies. He spun among them, Plate lending him energy, Blade granting him precision, and the Thrill . . . the Thrill giving him purpose. In moments like this, he could see why he had been created. He was wasted sitting at a table and listening to men blab. He was wasted doing anything but this: providing the ultimate test of men’s abilities, proving them, demanding their lives at the edge of a sword. He sent them to the Tranquiline Halls primed and ready to fight.
He was not a man. He was judgment.
Enthralled in the trance of it, he cut down foe after foe, sensing a strange rhythm to the fighting, as if the blows of his sword needed to fall to the dictates of some unseen beat. A redness grew at the edges of his vision, eventually covering the landscape like a veil. It seemed to shift and move, like the coils of an eel, trembling to the beats of his sword.
He was furious when a calling voice distracted him from the fight.
“Dalinar!”
He’d been hearing it for some time now, and had ignored it.
“Brightlord Dalinar! Blackthorn!”
He could ignore it no longer. It was too demanding, too annoying. Like a screeching cremling, playing its song inside his helm. He ignored it, felling a pair of swordsmen. They’d been lighteyed, but their eyes had burned away. You could no longer tell what rank they had been.
“Blackthorn!”
Bah! Dalinar spun toward the sound.
A man stood nearby, wearing Kholin blue. Dalinar raised his Shardblade. The man backed away, raising hands with no weapon, still shouting Dalinar’s name.
I know him. He’s . . . Kadesh? One of the captains among his elites. Dalinar lowered his sword and shook his head, trying to get the buzzing sound out of his ears. Only then did he see—really see—what surrounded him.
The dead. Hundreds upon hundreds of them, with shriveled coals for eyes, their armor and weapons sheared but their bodies eerily untouched. Almighty above . . . how many had he killed? He raised his hand to his helm, turning and looking about him. Timid blades of grass crept up among the bodies, pushing between arms, fingers, beside heads. He’d blanketed the plain so thoroughly with corpses that the grass had a difficult time finding places to rise.
Unfettered II: New Tales By Masters of Fantasy Page 53
