“I sometimes think I should be able to see the Parshendi,” Elhokar said. “I feel that if I stare long enough, I will find them, pin them down so I can challenge them. I wish they’d just fight me, like men of honor.”
“If they were men of honor,” Dalinar said, clasping his hands behind his back, “then they would not have killed your father as they did.”
“Why did they do it, do you suppose?”
Dalinar shook his head. “That question has churned in my head, over and over, like a boulder tumbling down a hill. Did we off end their honor? Was it some cultural misunderstanding?”
“A cultural misunderstanding would imply that they have a culture. Primitive brutes. Who knows why a horse kicks or an axehound bites? I shouldn’t have asked.”
Dalinar didn’t reply. He’d felt that same disdain, that same anger, in the months following Gavilar’s assassination. He could understand Elhokar’s desire to dismiss these strange, wildland parshmen as little more than animals.
But he’d seen them during those early days. Interacted with them. They were primitive, yes, but not brutes. Not stupid. We never really understood them, he thought. I guess that’s the crux of the problem.
“Elhokar,” he said softly. “It may be time to ask ourselves some difficult questions.”
“Such as?”
“Such as how long we will continue this war.”
Elhokar started. He turned, looking at Dalinar. “We’ll keep fighting until the Vengeance Pact is satisfied and my father is avenged!”
“Noble words,” Dalinar said. “But we’ve been away from Alethkar for six years now. Maintaining two far-flung centers of government is not healthy for the kingdom.”
“Kings often go to war for extended periods, Uncle.”
“Rarely do they do it for so long,” Dalinar said, “and rarely do they bring every Shardbearer and Highprince in the kingdom with them. Our resources are strained, and word from home is that the Reshi border encroachments grow increasingly bold. We are still fragmented as a people, slow to trust one another, and the nature of this extended war-without a clear path to victory and with a focus on riches rather than capturing ground-is not helping at all.”
Elhokar sniffed, wind blowing at them atop the peaked rock. “You say there’s no clear path to victory? We’ve been winning! The Parshendi raids are coming less frequently, and aren’t striking as far westward as they once did. We’ve killed thousands of them in battle.”
“Not enough,” Dalinar said. “They still come in strength. The siege is straining us as much as, or more than, it is them.”
“Weren’t you the one to suggest this tactic in the first place?”
“I was a different man, then, flush with grief and anger.”
“And you no longer feel those things?” Elhokar was incredulous. “Uncle, I can’t believe I’m hearing this! You aren’t seriously suggesting that I abandon the war, are you? You’d have me slink home, like a scolded axehound?”
“I said they were difficult questions, Your Majesty,” Dalinar said, keeping his anger in check. It was taxing. “But they must be considered.”
Elhokar breathed out, annoyed. “It’s true, what Sadeas and the others whisper. You’re changing, Uncle. It has something to do with those episodes of yours, doesn’t it?”
“They are unimportant, Elhokar. Listen to me! What are we willing to give, in order to get vengeance?”
“Anything.”
“And if that means everything your father worked for? Do we honor his memory by undermining his vision for Alethkar, all to get revenge in his name?”
The king hesitated.
“You pursue the Parshendi,” Dalinar said. “That is laudable. But you can’t let your passion for just retribution blind you to the needs of our kingdom. The Vengeance Pact has kept the highprinces channeled, but what will happen once we win? Will we shatter? I think we need to forge them together, to unite them. We fight this war as if we were ten different nations, fighting beside one another but not with one another.”
The king didn’t respond immediately. The words, finally, seemed to be sinking in. He was a good man, and shared more with his father than others chose to admit.
He turned away from Dalinar, leaning against the railing. “You think I’m a poor king, don’t you, Uncle?”
“What? Of course not!”
“You always talk about what I should be doing, and where I am lacking. Tell me truthfully, Uncle. When you look at me, do you wish you saw my father’s face instead?”
“Of course I do,” Dalinar said.
Elhokar’s expression darkened.
Dalinar laid a hand on his nephew’s shoulder. “I’d be a poor brother if I didn’t wish that Gavilar had lived. I failed him-it was the greatest, most terrible failure of my life.” Elhokar turned to him, and Dalinar held his gaze, raising a finger. “But just because I loved your father does not mean that I think you are a failure. Nor does it mean I do not love you in your own right. Alethkar itself could have collapsed upon Gavilar’s death, but you organized and executed our counterattack. You are a fine king.”
The king nodded slowly. “You’ve been listening to readings from that book again, haven’t you?”
“I have.”
“You sound like him, you know,” Elhokar said, turning back to look eastward again. “Near the end. When he began to act…erratically.”
“Surely I’m not so bad as that.”
“Perhaps. But this is much like how he was. Talking about an end to war, fascinated by the Lost Radiants, insisting everyone follow the Codes…”
Dalinar remembered those days-and his own arguments with Gavilar. What honor can we find on a battlefield while our people starve? the king had once asked him. Is it honor when our lighteyes plot and scheme like eels in a bucket, slithering over one another and trying to bite each other’s tails?
Dalinar had reacted poorly to his words. Just as Elhokar was reacting to his words now. Stormfather! I am starting to sound like him, aren’t I?
That was troubling, yet somehow encouraging at the same time. Either way, Dalinar realized something. Adolin was right. Elhokar-and the highprinces with him-would never respond to a suggestion that they retreat. Dalinar was approaching the conversation in the wrong way. Almighty be blessed for sending me a son willing to speak his mind.
“Perhaps you are right, Your Majesty,” Dalinar said. “End the war? Leave a battlefield with an enemy still in control? That would shame us.”
Elhokar nodded in agreement. “I’m glad you see sense.”
“But something does have to change. We need a better way to fight.”
“Sadeas has a better way already. I spoke of his bridges to you. They work so well, and he’s captured so many gemhearts.”
“Gemhearts are meaningless,” Dalinar said. “All of this is meaningless if we don’t find a way to get the vengeance we all want. You can’t tell me you enjoy watching the highprinces squabble, practically ignoring our real purpose in being here.”
Elhokar fell silent, looking displeased.
Unite them. He remembered those words, booming in his head. “Elhokar,” he said, an idea occurring to him. “Do you remember what Sadeas and I spoke of to you when we first came here to war? The specialization of the highprinces?”
“Yes,” Elhokar said. In the distant past, each of the ten highprinces in Alethkar had been given a specific charge for the governing of the kingdom. One had been the ultimate law in regard to merchants, and his troops had patrolled the roadways of all ten princedoms. Another had administrated judges and magistrates.
Gavilar had been very taken by the idea. He claimed it was a clever device, meant to force the highprinces to work together. Once, this system had forced them to submit to one another’s authority. Things hadn’t been done that way in centuries, ever since the fragmenting of Alethkar into ten autonomous princedoms.
“Elhokar, what if you named me Highprince of War?” Dalinar asked.
Elhokar didn’t
laugh; that was a good sign. “I thought you and Sadeas decided that the others would revolt if we tried something like that.”
“Perhaps I was wrong about that too.”
Elhokar appeared to consider it. Finally, the king shook his head. “No. They barely accept my leadership. If I did something like this, they’d assassinate me.”
“I’d protect you.”
“Bah. You don’t even take the present threats on my life seriously.”
Dalinar sighed. “Your Majesty, I do take threats to your life seriously. My scribes and attendants are looking into the strap.”
“And what have they discovered?”
“Well, so far we have nothing conclusive. Nobody has taken credit for trying to kill you, even in rumor. Nobody saw anything suspicious. But Adolin is speaking with leatherworkers. Perhaps he’ll bring something more substantial.”
“It was cut, Uncle.”
“We will see.”
“You don’t believe me,” Elhokar said, face growing red. “You should be trying to find out what the assassins’ plan was, rather than pestering me with some arrogant quest to become overlord of the entire army!”
Dalinar gritted his teeth. “I do this for you, Elhokar.”
Elhokar met his eyes for a moment, and his blue eyes flashed with suspicion again, as they had the week before.
Blood of my fathers! Dalinar thought. He’s getting worse.
Elhokar’s expression softened a moment later, and he seemed to relax. Whatever he’d seen in Dalinar’s eyes had comforted him. “I know you try for the best, Uncle,” Elhokar said. “But you have to admit that you’ve been erratic lately. The way you react to storms, your infatuation with my father’s last words-”
“I’m trying to understand him.”
“He grew weak at the end,” Elhokar said. “Everyone knows it. I won’t repeat his mistakes, and you should avoid them as well-rather than listening to a book that claims that lighteyes should be the slaves of the darkeyes.”
“That’s not what it says,” Dalinar said. “It has been misinterpreted. It’s mostly just a collection of stories which teach that a leader should serve those he leads.”
“Bah. It was written by the Lost Radiants!”
“They didn’t write it. It was their inspiration. Nohadon, an ordinary man, was its author.”
Elhokar glanced at him, raising an eyebrow. See, it seemed to say. You defend it. “You are growing weak, Uncle. I will not exploit that weakness. But others will.”
“I am not getting weak.” Yet again, Dalinar forced himself to be calm. “This conversation has gone off the path. The highprinces need a single leader to force them to work together. I vow that if you name me Highprince of War, I will see you protected.”
“As you saw my father protected?”
Dalinar’s mouth snapped shut.
Elhokar turned away. “I should not have said that. It was uncalled for.”
“No,” Dalinar said. “No, it was one of the truest things you have said to me, Elhokar. Perhaps you are right to distrust my protection.”
Elhokar glanced at him, curious. “Why do you react that way?”
“What way?”
“Once, if someone had said that to you, you’d have summoned your Blade and demanded a duel! Now you agree with them instead.”
“I-”
“My father started refusing duels, near the end.” Elhokar tapped on the railing. “I see why you feel the need for a Highprince of War, and you may have a point. But the others very much like the present arrangement.”
“Because it is comfortable to them. If we are going to win, we will need to upset them.” Dalinar stepped forward. “Elhokar, maybe it’s been long enough. Six years ago, naming a Highprince of War might well have been a mistake. But now? We know one another better, and we’ve been working united against the Parshendi. Perhaps it is time to take the next step.”
“Perhaps,” the king said. “You think they are ready? I’ll let you prove it to me. If you can show me that they are willing to work with you, Uncle, then I’ll consider naming you Highprince of War. Is that satisfactory?”
It was a solid compromise. “Very well.”
“Good,” the king said, standing up. “Then let us part for now. It is growing late, and I have yet to hear what Ruthar wishes of me.”
Dalinar nodded his farewell, walking back through the king’s chambers, Renarin trailing him.
The more he considered, the more he felt that this was the right thing to do. Retreating would not work with the Alethi, particularly not with their current mind-set. But if he could shock them out of their complacency, force them to adopt a more aggressive strategy…
He was still lost in thought considering that as they left the king’s palace and made their way down the ramps to where their horses waited. He climbed astride Gallant, nodding his thanks to the groom who had cared for the Ryshadium. The horse had recovered from his fall during the hunt, his leg solid and hale.
It was a short distance back to Dalinar’s warcamp, and they rode in silence. Which of the highprinces should I approach first? Dalinar thought. Sadeas?
No. No, he and Sadeas were already seen working together too often. If the other highprinces began to smell a stronger alliance, it would drive them to turn against him. Best that he approach less powerful highprinces first and see if he could get them to work with him in some way. A joint plateau assault, perhaps?
He’d have to approach Sadeas eventually. He didn’t relish the thought. Things were always so much easier when the two of them could work at a safe distance from one another. He-
“Father,” Renarin said. He sounded dismayed.
Dalinar sat upright, looking around, hand going for his side sword even while he prepared to summon his Shardblade. Renarin pointed. Eastward. Stormward.
The horizon was growing dark.
“Was there supposed to be a highstorm today?” Dalinar asked, alarmed.
“Elthebar said it was unlikely,” Renarin said. “But he’s been wrong before.”
Everyone could be wrong about highstorms. They could be predicted, but it was never an exact science. Dalinar narrowed his eyes, heart thumping. Yes, he could sense the signs now. The dust picking up, the scents changing. It was evening, but there should still be more light left. Instead, it was rapidly growing darker and darker. The very air felt more frantic.
“Should we go to Aladar’s camp?” Renarin said, pointing. They were nearest Highprince Aladar’s warcamp, and perhaps only a quarter-hour ride from the rim of Dalinar’s own.
Aladar’s men would take him in. Nobody would forbid shelter to a highprince during a storm. But Dalinar shuddered, thinking of spending a highstorm trapped in an unfamiliar place, surrounded by another highprince’s attendants. They would see him during an episode. Once that happened, the rumors would spread like arrows above a battlefield.
“We ride!” he called, kicking Gallant into motion. Renarin and the guardsmen fell in behind him, hooves a thunder to precurse the coming highstorm. Dalinar leaned low, tense. The grey sky grew clotted with dust and leaves blown ahead of the stormwall and the air grew dense with humid anticipation. The horizon burgeoned with thickening clouds. Dalinar and the others galloped past Aladar’s perimeter guards, who bustled with activity, holding their coats or cloaks against the wind.
“Father?” Renarin called from behind. “Are you-”
“We have time!” Dalinar shouted.
They eventually reached the jagged wall of the Kholin warcamp. Here, the remaining soldiers wore blue and white and saluted. Most had already retreated to their enclosures. He had to slow Gallant to get through the checkpoint. However, it would just be another short gallop to his quarters. He turned Gallant, preparing to go.
“Father!” Renarin said, pointing eastward.
The stormwall hung like a curtain in the air, speeding toward the camp. The massive sheet of rain was a silvery grey, the clouds above onyx black, lit from within by occasi
onal flashes of lightning. The guards who had saluted him were hurrying to a nearby bunker.
“We can make it,” Dalinar said. “We-”
“Father!” Renarin said, riding up beside him and catching his arm. “I’m sorry.”
The wind whipped at them, and Dalinar gritted his teeth, looking at his son. Renarin’s spectacled eyes were wide with concern.
Dalinar glanced at the stormwall again. It was only moments away.
He’s right.
He handed Gallant’s reins to an anxious soldier, who took the reins of Renarin’s mount as well, and the two of them dismounted. The groom rushed away, towing the horses into a stone stable. Dalinar almost followed-there would be fewer people to watch him in a stable-but a nearby barrack had the door open, and those inside waved anxiously. That would be safer.
Resigned, Dalinar joined Renarin, dashing to the stone-walled barrack. The soldiers made room for them; there was a group of servants packed inside as well. In Dalinar’s camp, no one was forced to weather the tempests in stormtents or flimsy wooden shacks, and nobody had to pay for protection inside stone structures.
The occupants seemed shocked to see their highprince and his son step in; several paled as the door thumped shut. Their only light was from a few garnets mounted on the walls. Someone coughed, and outside a scattering of windblown rock chips sprayed against the building. Dalinar tried to ignore the uncomfortable eyes around him. Wind howled outside. Perhaps nothing would happen. Perhaps this time-
The storm hit.
It began.
19
Starfalls
He holds the most frightening and terrible of all of the Shards. Ponder on that for a time, you old reptile, and tell me if your insistence on nonintervention holds firm. Because I assure you, Rayse will not be similarly inhibited.
Dalinar blinked. The stuffy, dimly lit barrack was gone. Instead, he stood in darkness. The air was thick with the scent of dried grain, and when he reached out with his left hand, he felt a wooden wall. He was in a barn of some sort.
The cool night was still and crisp; there was no sign of a storm. He felt carefully at his side. His side sword was gone, as was his uniform. Instead, he wore a homespun belted tunic and a pair of sandals. It was the type of clothing he’d seen depicted on ancient statues.
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