or not he had been willing to give up everything he was in order to be
with her. With shame, she admitted that she would also never truly know
whether she had forbidden him to decide for his own good, or simply
because she wanted to keep the army together.
Taln dropped to one knee, driving his Blade into the rock. He bowed his
head before her in an oddly humbling gesture. “Thank you,” he whispered.
Then he stood, strong-backed and sure again, Talenel the Steadfast, a
Herald determined to protect Roshar from the demons of its mystic past.
Jasnah watched him go, something unacknowledged crumbling within
her. If only she could do as he did, abandon reason in favor of fantasy. What would it be like to ignore the harsh truths of the world, replacing them
with beliefs far more palatable?
But she could not. Whatever it was within her that placed logic over
fancy and truth over delusion was also the thing that gave her strength.
She would rather find success in the real world than have all the pretend
treasures of Taln’s false one.
It’s gone, she realized, somewhat stunned. It’s over. I never deserved him anyway.
And she knew then what she had to do. Distasteful, yes, but necessary.
Someone had to be practical, even if practicality brought pain. She was
accustomed to that.
She found Meridas going over his battle orders with Aneazer and some
of their officers. Kemnar was there, as were all the Shardbearers—this
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was not a time for political bickering, and even Meridas could see that.
Jasnah stood quietly, close enough to be noticed but not close enough to
be intrusive. She watched Meridas with a calm look, catching his eyes. A
few moments later he excused himself to walk over to her.
When he arrived, his eyes were curious, and he spoke no insults. He
obviously sensed a change in her. “Yes?” he asked quietly.
“You plan to have Taln killed,” Jasnah said calmly. “Do not try to deny it.
You replaced his honor guard, and I see the hatred in your eyes when you
see him. You loathe that this is ‘his’ army, and you hate how he looks at me.”
Meridas’ eyes thinned. “You wish me to return his honor guard to the
way it was before.”
“It would do little good,” Jasnah said. “You are a resourceful man,
Meridas. I do not doubt that you will find a way to remove Taln sooner or
later. I do wonder how you intend to keep the army together without him,
however.”
Meridas raised an eyebrow. “You overestimate his worth, my dear. If
our . . . illustrious Herald were to fall to an enemy blade today, the army would not suffer grievously. We need him at the beginning of the battle,
true, lest the men break during the initial assault. However, once the
battle is through, we will have the resources of Kholinar. That means pay
for the men and promises of titles for the officers. I think you will find that worldly rewards will replace spiritual ones quite nicely for the great percentage of the troops.”
Jasnah frowned. “It appears that we have need to deal. The madman
must live. The cost matters not, Meridas, as long as you see that he is not harmed.”
Meridas snorted, eyes flashing with jealousy. “What?” he demanded in
a quiet hiss. “I am to make certain your lover remains so that you can bed him behind my back? You would marry me, true, but only to make a fool
of me before the court!”
Jasnah regarded him flatly. “Taln is bound by an honor beyond what you
can understand, Meridas,” she said. “He would do no such thing. You have
my oath of honor.”
He calmed, eyeing her distrustful y. Yet there was enough decency in him
not to question her word. “You wish an accord?” he asked. “Very well—you
have only one thing to offer. It will happen in Kholinar this evening, after we defeat the enemy force. No more complaints, no more evasions, and no
more deals. You are far too proficient at promising the same thing over and over for greater rewards. This evening we will wed.”
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“Agreed,” Jasnah said, feeling a coldness within. “I will take your hand,
Meridas. But there shall be no heirs until this war is finished with Taln
still alive.”
Meridas’s expression darkened. “Very wel , but I add my own stipulations.
First, I will be free of my oath. No more obedience to your commands.
Second, should the madman die from actions beyond my control, you will
provide an heir once the war is through.”
“I am to trust his life to your generosity?” Jasnah asked.
“You are to trust it to my word,” Meridas spat. “I will not kill your
beloved, Jasnah. As long as you don’t make a fool of me in court, I care
nothing for his life. Warfare, however, is unpredictable—as you well know.
I will not have my future dependent upon a madman’s ability to keep
himself from harm. I will see that he is protected as best I can. Should
something unforeseen happen, however . . . well, you are a woman of great
resources. I’m certain you will be able to determine that I had nothing to do with the death. I give my oath that he will not die by my hand or intention.
I will give my allies the same command.”
He would offer no more. Jasnah closed her eyes and nodded. When she
opened them, Meridas bowed slightly, then returned to his plannings.
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TALN 13
As Taln suspected, Jasnah was wrong about Meridas’s intentions.
The nobleman’s soldiers didn’t try to kill Taln—in fact, they were
frustratingly over-protective. Taln stood, ringed by a double-line of Aneaz-er’s best troops, fuming at his inability to take part in the battle. Even Meridas and Aneazer themselves weren’t so well coddled.
It was probably a subtle insult of some kind. That would be like Meridas,
keeping Taln from the fighting out of a supposed wish to protect him. Still, there was good reason to place Taln where he was. His honor guard stood
at the top of a hill, his banner—gold with a brown taln glyph—flying to reassure and give strength. He would have placed his troop in the middle
of the battlefield, where it would lend even greater morale, but he was more confident in his ability to keep himself alive than any mortal man would
have a right to be.
Any mortal man. He was a Herald. The only things he had were his
memories, and they had served him well so far. Denying who he was would
present far too great a risk. If he held to his memories, the only thing he risked losing was Jasnah. If he abandoned them, he risked the future of
mankind. It was good that Jasnah understood that.
Besides, the solution she had presented was a very good one. He didn’t
gamble much—not really. A year was not so long to wait. If the Khothen did not invade, then he could revisit his personal searchings. If they did attack,
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then all of Roshar would have been better because of his determination. It was a very good compromise.
Jasnah’s battle plan worked well too. Either the Aleth forces had tried
before to get a breaking force into the castle, or the Vedens were expecting such a move, for they reacted with remarkable speed once the diversionary
force was spotted. The invaders gathered their ranks, moving carefully
into intercepting positions without exposing themselves to much bowfire from
the walls. Fortunately, their speed and positioning left their towers behind, and exposed their forces to an easy ambush.
Meridas might not have approved of the plan’s origin, but he made use of
it with finesse. Within a few tenset minutes of the call to attack, the Veden forces were surrounded on three sides. The towers fell quickly, captured
rather than destroyed.
From his vantage, Taln could easily see the workings of the battle—both
armies were only of moderate size. Much of what he saw unsettled him. The
Aleth Shardbearers were by far the central forces on the battlefield.
The Aleth spearmen, trained carefully in their formations, worked at
positioning the enemy troops. The Shardbearers were the ones who caused
the most destruction. With proper support, a single Shardbearer could
break an enemy formation, leaving tensets of corpses before him. The
spearmen could then move in, decimating the fallen line. Where resistance
was stronger, the Shardbearers simply slew more men.
The twin edges of ambush and Shardblades proved overwhelming. Taln
couldn’t see faces below, but he could feel the panic in the movement of the Veden lines. Even without Taln, the Aleth force still had fourteen Shardbearers—an incredible number. Soon, Veden dead covered the ground, and
Taln felt less displeased about being left behind. His presence was needed in this battle, but his Blade certainly was not, and the slaughter did not make for an appealing temptation.
This is what his Brethren had feared—Shardblades turned against men.
This was one of the reasons prohibitions against conquering and fighting
other men had been placed in both the Arguments and The Way of Kings.
The Heralds had suffered men to have Shardblades because of the weapons’
awesome effectiveness against the Khothen. Obviously, Blades were even
more effective against men.
Meridas himself dueled the Veden commander. The bout was short,
and once the man fell, his sub-commanders were within their honor to
surrender—which they quickly did. The Vedens had lost nearly half of their force in a matter of a couple of hours.
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Taln stomached the destruction, as he had so many other times. Time
had done odd things to his perceptions of death. He had seen so many
people pass—mighty lords and simple farmers, scholars and tyrants. Yet,
time had not dulled his concern for them. Indeed, their lives were the
whole of his purpose. He fought through the eternities to protect them,
and loathed seeing their lives spent so easily.
“Come,” he said to his unwanted honor guard, riding down toward the
battlefield. He could already see the gates opening again, the besieged
Aleth nobility coming out to greet their saviors. Taln shunned their fan-
fares, turning away as Meridas rode proudly toward a group of well-clothed aristocrats.
“My lord?” one of his guard captains asked as Taln led them away from
the gates, toward the battlefield itself. “Should you not present yourself to those inside the walls?”
“Later,” Taln said, climbing off of his horse as they neared the area that had seen the most fighting. The groans of men were low in the air, as if
the sounds themselves were weak and dying. Most of the living wounded
bore the mangled wounds of spearheads rammed under or past armor.
Of the men hit with Shardblades, there were few in one piece, let alone
alive. Tired soldiers moved among the carnage, searching out the survivors.
“We did not fight,” Taln told his men. “So we can use our strength for
this effort. Help me find the wounded and tend to their injuries.”
Mouths turned down at the prospect of doing such menial, grisly work,
but Taln’s orders left little room for complaint. Reluctantly, the honor guard followed him across the bloodstained rocks while their fellow officers rode into Kholinar to feast.
It was dark before Taln finally released his soldiers from their task.
Bloodied and weary, the twenty men probably wished they were among
the wounded themselves. Taln sighed, laying one final soldier down in the
healer’s tent. Aneazer’s force was weak on healers and attendants for the sick, but Lord Dalenar’s betrothed had sent men from the city to see to the work.
And there was much to be done. It was surprising how tenaciously a man
could grip life, how long he could lay among the dead, whispering for help through strength-sapped lips.
Taln did what he could. He understood the body as only one who had
used the nahel to heal could. He was no surgeon—his understanding was instinctual, rather than specific. However, he had lived a very, very long time, and had acquired many skills over the centuries. He put to use what
THE WAY OF KINGS PRIME 715
he had, training his men quickly and helping the healers by moving bodies
and bandaging wounds.
Taln stood wearily. There was still work to be done, but it would have to
be someone else’s duty. Taln had avoided his political responsibilities long enough. If he was going to prepare Alethkar, as Jasnah’s oath said he could, then he was going to need to keep up at least some proprieties. He left the tent behind, promising to send soldiers to help move the wounded—those
who survived the night—inside the walls the next day, before a highstorm
could drench them.
He left the lighted tents behind, the fresh, unbloodied air outside strange to his senses. The great city of Kholinar glowed with triumphant torches on the walls. Taln paused for a moment, staring up. The celebrations seemed
odd, compared to the suffering he had left behind, but he knew they were
necessary. Victory must be encouraged, the men rewarded, for they were stil an uncertain and untried force. A quick success now would give them a
great deal of motivation.
Kholinar. It looked . . . old. Not broken or unkempt; its walls were still as sure as they had been centuries before. Yet there was something to the
massive city. It looked as Taln felt—aged without wrinkles, tired without
frailty. Some things from the past, at least, lived on. This was Bajerden’s city, and here he had learned philosophy and truth from the lips of Jezrien, Ishar, and Balear—the wisest of the Heralds. From his discussions with
them, especially Jezrien, had come the grand work The Way of Kings. Yes, some things did endure. There was goodness in men, though ofttimes their
foolishness overrode it.
Taln entered the city without fanfare or recognition. Dressed in his
common cloak, his clothing stained dark with the blood of the wounded, he
might seem like just another wearied soldier who had drawn the unpleasant
duty of seeing to the wounded. The streets were busy with people, some
soldiers, the majority civilians. Apparently Lord Dalenar’s call to arms had been very well-received, and most of the city’s men had gone with him to
battle against their king.
The revelers gave him wide berth, noting both his mood and his clothing.
He made his way to the palace—the way was sure to him, even if much of
the cityscape had changed over the centuries. At the palace gates, a pair
of guards moved to bar him entrance, but Taln hefted his Shardblade off
his shoulder and presented it mutely. The soldiers quickly flushed at their mistake, bowing.
The palace was well-maintained. Rich, indeed, but not as gaudy as the
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one at Ral Eram. Taln was beginning to suspect that he would indeed like
this Dalenar, as Jasnah had implied. The palace hallways were busy with
servants bearing the remnants of the evening feast, and Taln’s stomach
that shouldn’t need food growled hungrily. He ignored its protests for the moment, following the flow of people toward the main feast hall.
The room was oddly quiet. He turned the corner, expecting to see people
sitting at their segregated tables, lethargically drinking away the end of the feast. Instead, he found a solemn gathering. The nobility were seated
quietly at their tables as they watched something at the front of the room.
Meridas stood—wearing what appeared to be a new outfit—before
the kneeling Jasnah. Her dress was a deep blue, not as ornate as the one
in which she had escaped from the palace, but gossamer and beautiful
nonetheless. Her hair was done up in one of her traditional Aleth braids,
her face properly made up, her head bowed as she listened to the Vorin
monk preach.
It had been a long time, but the Vorin ceremonies had been fairly im-
mutable since the Eighth Epoch. Taln recognized the wedding quite easily.
He stood, stunned, simply staring.
We’ve reached civilization now, he realized after a moment’s stupefaction.
She was engaged to Meridas. Now that a proper ceremony can be performed . . .
That was why she had approached him earlier. That was why she had
been so impatient that he make a choice between Herald and man. Taln
had thought her solution of waiting a year a simple delay, but it had been more than that. Without a promise from him, she would do what was
expected of her. Considering her dedication to Alethkar, it was amazing
she would even consider otherwise . . .
Suddenly he realized that he wasn’t the only one who had been forced to
consider abandoning everything that he was. He wanted to look away, but
he could not. Heralds were not supposed to feel like such fools. They were supposed to be immune to such pain in their hearts. They were supposed
to be perfect, not prone to foolish sentimentality . . . or love.
But he had never made a very good Herald.
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